


the first time (they tell you that the world is turning)

by wearethewitches



Series: sixty-seven thousand miles an hour | the doctor is not a monk [1]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alien Gender/Sexuality, Aliens, Angst and Feels, Author's Favorite, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Murder, Children of Characters, Complete, Cousins, Dysfunctional Family, Friendship, Gallifrey, Gallifreyan Culture (Doctor Who), Gen, Harm to Children, Heavy Angst, Hybrids, Meet the Family, Mental Link, Mostly Gen, Multiple Relationships, Past Relationship(s), Polyamory, Post-Library River Song, Pre-Episode: s12e08 The Haunting of Villa Diodati, Psychic Abilities, Self-Indulgent, Temporal Paradox, The Author Regrets Nothing, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:42:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22997137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/wearethewitches
Summary: -and you just can’t quite believe it.The Doctor has spent thousands of years roaming all of time and space - and youreallydidn't think they had any children? Or, the many children of the Doctor have been kidnapped and are slowly being murdered, one by one. But why? By who? And where?(Gallifrey. They're being murdered on Gallifrey.)
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/River Song, Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who)
Series: sixty-seven thousand miles an hour | the doctor is not a monk [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652698
Comments: 30
Kudos: 96





	1. Prologue

In the reception of the infamous Arena, on the planet of Morag, a young Draconian hybrid glares at a rude, would-be-dead-man.

“You’re going to lose,” she warns, the new contestant laughing at her as they strut towards the Station. The girl is long used to their sort, but Aminah’s job is to write down their names and titles, if they pay the right fee – not judge them.

There has been a fuss of late, more contestants joining up and more indentured servants getting thrown into the gaping maws of monsters. Aminah doesn’t know why and she is curious – a trait that Nawab always hated, saying it would get her killed one day.

Aminah dislikes her own thoughts. _It was Nawab who died,_ she reminds herself, _thinking he could buy us passage off-world._ Hybrids of the same clutch, hatching years apart and hatching alone, the siblings had been borne to a pure-blood Draconian woman by the name of _Alya_ and an alien of legend, known to her people as _Karshtakavaar_ – sometimes, Aminah thinks she remembers things from him, as all Draconians do, but then the memories wriggle out of her grasp, locking themselves away where she can’t reach.

Curiosity will not get her killed, she is quite sure, so Aminah listens to nearby conversations all afternoon and well into the night. She sees many bodies dragged across the stone floors in front of her desk, cleaning bots wiping away the wet marks left behind and hears, _finally_ , of why the Arena is so popular.

Apparently, it has been one thousand, one hundred and eleven years since the last rebellion.

“…that’s not so impressive,” Aminah mutters, startling as her newest customer growls, assuming her words are meant for them, insulting their chosen gladiator name. Aminah glances at the holo-form they’d handed in, puffing through her nostrils at the sight of _Blood-Bather._ “It’s not. It really isn’t. You should choose something funny, like Bob or Fred – the crowd like funny names, you could get into the records if you’re popular, even if you die.”

“My name is Blood-Bather,” they insist.

 _Sheesh,_ Aminah rolls her eyes, inputting the data and then nearly choking at the gladiator’s insurance policy. “Why have you not got an insurance policy?” She questions, voice high and squeaky. Gladiators without insurance policies are either insane or _really that good._

Blood-Bather is the one to roll their eyes, this time. “No insurance, bigger pay-out. Anniversary matches pay five hundred times higher. You going to give me a code, now?”

Aminah, in something of a daze, goes through the motions. Blood-Bather is replaced by another customer and it’s like a dam has broken. None of her clients have any insurance policies for the rest of the night and at one point, her boss gives her a template waiver for them all to sign, as the death-toll gets higher and higher, the Arena lawyers getting a work-out from suing families.

“Oi, dragon-girl,” one of her co-workers hisses, gaining a dirty look from Aminah. She’s told him thousands of times that ‘dragon’ is a slur. “Did you hear? Employees of the Arena who win a match get a seven-fifty percent bonus on top of their annual salary!”

Aminah can’t help her reaction, she really can’t.

“Sign me up.”

Her co-worker stares and Aminah takes a moment to think about what she just said, before repeating herself, pretty sure that she’d rather die than spend another century in a time-freeze; gladiators are taken out of theirs, so they can actually get hurt in the fights.

“…you sure?” Her co-worker winces. They all know the statistics – the death toll is in their sightline at all times, the daily counter resetting each sunrise. Never, _ever_ has Aminah seen it below four thousand – and even then, the average is double that.

Aminah closes her desk, ignoring the outrage of her newest customer to stand, nodding fiercely. Her co-worker leans back in his chair, shutting his own station to bring out a holo-contract. Aminah takes it, skims the details and signs, pressing her hand to the identity trace. Her own ID appears on the holo-pad, showing her scaly face and wide, toothy smile.

* * *

 **AMINAH, MORAG ARENA EMPLOYEE  
** IDENT. CODE: 4486NN100Ë₸₼Ω₿-AM  
(INDENTURED; 30.43K SOLS REMAINING)

DRACONIAN + [UNKNOWN] HYBRID | AGE: [CLASSIFIED] [FROZEN] | STATUS: MINOR (BANNED)

NEAREST KIN (LIVING): KARSHTAKAVAAR (PARENT) [UNTRACEABLE]

NEAREST KIN (DECEASED): NAWAB (SIBLING, ARENA GLADIATOR), ALYA (PARENT)

* * *

It’s not much, but it’s enough. Aminah signs again afterwards, to confirm that she’s signing away her rights as a minor, allowing the Arena Management to put her forwards as an emancipated employee. Almost immediately, her co-worker has to sign off the request for her un-freezing.

“Good luck,” they say, but their pity is clear. They honestly don’t think she’ll survive and Aminah doesn’t blame them.

“Do I go to the barracks, then?”

“Not quite yet,” another co-worker says – only, they aren’t a co-worker. They aren’t wearing the Arena uniform and they’re staring at Aminah with glistening eyes. “Hello, young one. I am your cousin.”

“…I don’t have cousins,” says Aminah, only for her un-freezing code to arrive on her holo-brace. The computer chirps, before she feels a rush – blood pumping through her veins, two hearts beating in her chest, the need to breathe causing her to suck in a gulp of air. Her co-worker pats her on the shoulder, then opens up their desk again, ignoring her ‘cousin’ as they grab her wrist, not seeming to care that she’s a Draconian – like they don’t know that she’s stronger than most species, even as a child.

But when Aminah attempts to break their hold, she quite suddenly becomes terrified – because it doesn’t work. _They’re_ the stronger one.

“You’re coming with me,” the Cousin tells her, almost comforting. Aminah is scared of them and as they press a button on their wrist-guard, her fear mounts. She feels the universe pressing in on her and twisting, pulling her through places she doesn’t want to go – until she’s in a large room, with a sparking teleport pad beneath her feet and huddles of children pressed against the dark brown walls.

The Cousin doesn’t let her go, hand instead rising to her temple, tracing around the psychic inhibitor. “Oh, we should take that off. It might seem a little overwhelming at first, but the House will protect you from outside influences – there’s a psychic wall laced into the membrane of the building.”

Aminah struggles to get out of their grip, but it doesn’t work, the Cousin only holding onto her tighter as they undo the cap on her inhibitor. _No, no, no,_ she thinks, terrified of what is to come. She can barely remember a time without her inhibitor – without Nawab’s mind to keep her steady in the ever-present storm that is the universe.

“ **Hold still** ,” the Cousin orders, command in their voice. In an instant, Aminah is still, muscles locked and tense. She stares at the nearest group of children. There can’t be more than twenty of them in the room, altogether. They all look to be the same age, too – Aminah used to make a game of guessing the ages of the Arena contestants. The children match her age before she was frozen.

Then there is a flicker in the inhibitor, a crack in the wall that keeps her mind from expanding – and Aminah breaks it without a second thought, the inhibitor sparking against her skull as her mind unravels from its cage. A silent scream echoes through her mind – her own. It’s too much to take, so suddenly. Aminah can’t bear it, being so open and _free_.

And then she hears them. The children. Their thoughts and feelings are a miasma of pain, fear, loss, sadness – negative, except for the solace of some that they will be rescued. Aminah’s hearts flutter with joy when she recognises the person they wish for.

“There we go,” starts the Cousin, gentle and yet, so _dumb_. Aminah stays still as they stroke the neon green scales that spread all the way from her nose to the back of her skull, dug in against a background of hard brown shell that could – and has – been mistaken for skin before. She gathers herself, feeling the Cousin on the fringe, their fractured mind an easy target.

When Aminah barrels straight into it, the Cousin goes down like a brick.

The other children mutter and exclaim in various pitches, one particularly brave one snarling and rushing forth to kick the Cousin’s face hard enough to break their nose. Orange-red blood immediately starts to drip down, pooling on the pale brown floor.

“Where are we?” Aminah asks them. The brave one looks at her, eyes narrowing into slits – Aminah recognises them as one of the Catkind. There were a lot of Catkind warriors in the Arena, medics too – they were a versatile people. This Catkind is small, with dark brown fur marked with lines of caramel and white, humanoid characteristics few past the green eyes and long jaw. She can feel their mind and it feels like her own.

Aminah introduces herself with an outstretched hand, wishing she could sheath her claws.

“My name is Aminah.”

The Catkind is quiet for a minute, then reaches out. “Demetrius,” he says, deeper voice betraying him as male. “Welcome to the House. No-one’s ever knocked Cousin out, before.”

“How do we get out?” Aminah asks him, but Demetrius shakes his head.

“Cousin locked the doors. Even if we wander, we can’t leave and the House itself aligns itself with the Cousin. It’s… _alive._ ”

Aminah bubbles with curiosity, only exacerbated by the freeing of her mind. She feels light, buoyant – and she can feel just how strong she is, in comparison to the other children and the walls of the House. In the distance, she can feel others outside the boundaries and it’s clear, as they reach out in confusion, that they can feel her, too.

“If we bound together, in our heads,” Aminah says, tentatively reaching and finding herself blocked from reaching them just like she thought she would be, “we could get out a cry for help. I can’t do it by myself, I don’t think. I can feel more people. They…” Aminah hesitates to say it, looking at their kidnapper. “They feel like the Cousin.” She omits how all of them, the children, feel like the Cousin, too.

Demetrius makes a face, baring his teeth with a hiss. But he pulls her off of the teleport platform towards the other children, brushing against her consciousness.

“Show us how,” he orders, even as his mind says _yes, yes, please, save us, **help us** -_

“Come here.” Aminah encourages the children. Some hesitate, but Demetrius and then another – _Hila, my name is Hila_ , they tell her through a fleeting psychic message – gathers them all. Aminah counts twenty-two, though Hila corrects her: _thirty._

The images of eight different faces flash through her mind, one after the other. Names follow them – _Enoch, Nir, Georgina, Tal, Emery, Ghulam, Mazlyn, Charles_ – and there is grief there, that Aminah takes and absorbs with every name. It shatters her for a moment that feels like forever, before she shares Nawab with Hila, how his scales glimmered under the light and his teeth shone white like bone.

 _Nawab_ , Hila repeats back at her, grey skin dull and drawn. Their hair is limp, none of the usual Venusian brightness to the blue of it. Aminah listens to Hila add Nawab’s name to the score, then returns to reality – out of practice at multitasking – drawing them all together under the fading glow of the House’s ceiling; the Cousin is insensate at their backs.

“I’m older than you, I’ve lived longer,” says Aminah, knowing the difference between herself and the rest. The time-freeze has given her years that these other children haven’t lived, the bond she shared with her brother and the memories given to her by her mother a knowledge unknown to them. Hila is aware of something and the other Venusian, Itai, she is too, but they don’t have her _power._

“We’re all eight,” Demetrius argues, stubborn. “The Cousin says that we’re all days off being eight – it wouldn’t work at any other time, they said.”

“What were they trying to do?” Aminah asks and Hila shows her Emery’s death, the first of many. The Cousin screams at him, asks why he _doesn’t see_ as they stand in front of a wall that is cracked, _wrong_ – and then the Cousin snaps his spine before Emery can even shed a tear. To Aminah, it is abrupt, yet only something to cringe at, which Hila burns her for across the connection she created.

 _Do not blame me for the way I have grown!_ Aminah bares her teeth at Hila, who glowers in return. Demetrius is the voice of reason, telling Hila off. A small, red being with spikes and dark, black-rimmed eyes is quiet as she introduces herself.

“My name: Ryoko. Cousin is mad. They ask us to see cracks in the universe, in…in time and space,” tells Ryoko, like it doesn’t make Aminah gasp and see foreign stars, the genetic memories of her alien parent flashing before her eyes. “We are the children of the House. We _should_ see, says the Cousin, but…we do not. We are not true, even if we have the blood of the Oncoming Storm.”

“ _Karshtakavaar,_ ” murmurs Aminah, before other names are whispered. Hila and Itai say _Peaceful Healer_ and Demetrius whispers _the Beast._ More come, some repeating. Beast. Oncoming Storm. Healer. Begetter. Wise Man. Belot’ssar. Great Warrior. Doctor. Father.

The last two, Aminah hears three times apiece.

“We’re half-siblings?” The Draconian girl asks, barely breathing. Minds reach for hers, three, then nine, then fifteen and then eighteen. Four the children don’t seem to know what they’re doing at all: Ryoko is one of them. Another is Fumiko, who looks like Ryoko, except she’s nearly as tall as Aminah and green instead of red. The last two are Human, girls by the name of Friday and Alexis. Aminah holds them altogether while Itai works to weave their minds into the mix.

_All of us-_

_-siblings?_

_-the Doctor saved my mother-_

_-I’m scared, I want-_

_-someone save us!_

_-we’re doomed, we’re going to fudging **die** -_

_We are not dying today!_ Aminah cuts through the loudest of the chatter. _We’re going to shout. All of you, think of our parent, Karshtakavaar – of the Doctor, of the Beast, the Wise Man – whatever you know them as!_

 _Father,_ weeps Dekon the Menoptran, the buzz of his true voice plastered over the translation.

Cen, a Trion, calls out in anger. _Doctor, save us! Save us, damn you, **save us!**_

 _Save us,_ Aminah copies him. She thinks it again, louder, again and again. _Save us. Save us. Save us._

The words repeat. Her brothers, sisters and siblings mimic her and call out, pouring their hopes, fears, dreams and anger into the words. Her head pounds. They all hurt from how hard they think the words **_SAVE US_** to their absent parent, the warrior and healer, who oft came to their birth-parent’s home and saved it before they were even born.

 _Save us!_ They shout into the void of creation, straining to reach the one who will come for them until the moment comes that Aminah feels something crack against her skull. Her eyes flutter and her mind slips down, down and deep, escaping the connection, yet still holding on.

Through the eyes of her siblings, Aminah sees the Cousin, their face covered in blood and their eyes full of rage; they bring down to bear a mighty sword upon her and it hurts. The blade runs through her, as if she were some poor gladiator in the Arena. The universe falls from her grasp and her mind turns black, one last thought slipping out into the darkness.

_SAVE US_


	2. Chapter One

The heat of the psychic paper hits her like a sledgehammer.

“ _AH!_ ” The Doctor exclaims, patting at her jacket and dropping the neon-coloured thingamajig. Her friends startle at her sudden exclamation, Graham muttering about her giving him a heart attack as she digs out the psychic paper. The immediacy of how time swirls around it draws her attention past the urgency – the call, whoever it comes from, is in a very specific time and place, one that tastes like ash and all the familiarities of home.

“What’s the matter? Is that the psychic paper?” Yaz asks her, oh so curious and unable to sense the miasma that brings the Doctor to a halt, makes her hesitant and wary.

 _This comes from Gallifrey,_ she thinks, pausing too long and making her companions exchange worried glances.

“...I’m sure it’s nothing,” the Doctor mutters, opening it up. Something hurts, distantly, as she focuses on the call. The strength of it is overwhelming, all that pain and childish grief – and the physical hurt comes from her knees, she realises, because the psychic call for help has bowled her over.

“-tor!” She hears the tail-end of Yasmin’s yelp, Graham muttering again, almost telling her off for whatever has dropped her. Ryan’s eyes pierce her own, worry reflected back in them.

“Call for help,” she practically slurs, staggered by the depth of their message. “I need to go home.”

“Is your home in danger?” Ryan asks.

“Someone is.” The Doctor uses her friends to steady herself as she gets back to her feet, focusing on the console and on that fading feeling from the psychic paper. There were no coordinates – only those words: save us. _Save us – but who is us?_ The Doctor swallows the lump in her throat, pushing back the tears in her eyes.

The message was definitely meant for her.

Now, all she has to do is find out where those children are on Gallifrey.

“You can’t come with me, where I’m going – no Humans allowed,” she croaks out, hearing the protests. Memories threaten to overwhelm her, of Zoe and Jaime- but no, she won’t think of them. _No,_ she thinks, saying it out loud. “I’m sorry, but really, _no_ , you can’t come. Even staying in the Tardis is too much of a risk.”

“You told us there would be risks,” Graham counters, lips pressed together. “You warned us and we know that sometimes, things are dangerous. Whatever message you got, it’s scared you and that’s plain as day. We’re helping.”

“Humans are _banned_ ,” she snaps, getting a light shove from Yaz.

“Oi, don’t get tetchy. We’re helping. End of story. Tell us what’s happening.”

Glowering, the Doctor clenches her fists, flipping over the psychic paper so they can see the blocky, childish scrawl there. As they look, she explains, “It comes from Gallifrey, my planet of origin. Except it’s before something happened, an event I’ve witnessed. I don’t want to go back there.”

“But Doctor,” interrupts Ryan, his voice strained. “That’s a kid’s writing.”

“Yes,” the Doctor agrees, quiet and solemn. “More than one of them sent this message – nearly two dozen, I reckon. It could be more. They’re scared and losing hope, trapped somewhere they can’t escape.”

“And they called out to you.” Yasmin speaks softly. The Doctor nods, putting the wallet away and clutching at the TARDIS console.

“Where we’re going…Humans really, _truly_ aren’t welcome. I’m one of the few who ever brought them there and they hate me as much as they respect me. I’ve had friends like you who went to the Time Lord Academy, I’ve had others who saw horrors there beyond imagining – nearly all who were sent home by the Time Lords without their consent and without their memories of their time with me. It’d be like our first adventure was the only adventure we ever had, if they did that to you.”

Her friend’s opinion on that is clear. Fear radiates from them all – they don’t want to forget.

“So- so what do we do?” Graham asks, “How can we help?”

“Stay inside the Tardis,” she tells him. “Watch the scanners after I set them up. I can follow the psychic trail, if it hasn’t already been swamped by other searchers. My people are telepathic – and that scream was loud enough to be heard here, on the other side of the universe. I’m going to have to interact with them and when I say they _can’t_ know you’re here, I _mean_ it, guys.” The Doctor tries to stress the seriousness of the situation, but she can’t help her minute flinching at the end.

She doesn’t want to see the rest of their reactions, so she drives the TARDIS, her old girl soothing the edges of her frazzled mind. The Doctor leans on her, opening her mind up as slowly as she can manage as they get closer to when and where she stashed Gallifrey, all those years ago. As she reaches the edge of the planet, a barrier catches her, slowing her TARDIS to a delicate halt – the security measures of old, from before the War. Easy to escape, if you know how.

_No wonder the Master was able to burn everything._

A call flickers to life in the hologram projector, showing an armed guard in red, Rassilon’s seal upon their chest scrubbed away and replaced with her own personal sigil – to the Doctor’s horror.

“Really?” She asks, before they can even begin to speak, visibly disturbed. “You renounce Rassilon and the Prydonian Chapter and stamp my own mark on your armour, now? I didn’t realise I was as famous as that.”

The guard blinks rapidly, eyes widening. They look at her in awe. “ _Blessed Doctor, you have returned!_

“Yeah, I’m back. Let my Tardis out of Holding,” she orders, plenty aware of her silent companions. The guard stutters and eventually goes mute, saluting across their chest. The TARDIS starts to move again, but the hologram remains. The Doctor returns to piloting, but asks them, “What are you still doing here?”

“ _…my apologies, Lady Doctor. I do not mean offence – but my brother was one of the men who rebelled against the Lord President, out in the dust-fields beyond the Citadel. For you._ ”

The Doctor squints, but really, she doesn’t look at them long. She can’t. It’s unbearable to think of living Time Lords when now, she knows they will be destroyed once again.

“Epic. If my newest adventure turns out alright, we should meet up again, share a meal.”

“ _My brother would be honoured to share a meal at your table, Lady Doctor!_ ” The guard exclaims, so young and fresh off the line. Despite that, or maybe because of that, the Doctor feels less uneasy – especially as the minds of her people become clear, like a hundred million stars appearing from behind a storm. At her arrival – at her open mind and hearts – they reach out, celebrating her return. The guard kneels. “ _Any assistance you require, I will give._ ”

“Alright,” she replies in a light manner, finally touching down in the awaiting TARDIS bay, most likely already surrounded by half a dozen armed guards, if the General is still about. She waves the guard off, not really expecting any more goodwill than this. “You should go, now.”

“ _Fare parting to you, Doctor._ ” Their hologram finally flickers out and the Doctor closes her eyes, just for a moment.

“…Doctor?” Yasmin starts, edging close. “How famous are you on Gallifrey, exactly?”

“Not so famous.”

“But you said they’ve got your stuff on their armour,” Ryan points out, eyebrow raised. “That’s not exactly normal.”

“Yeah,” Graham nods, “and who’s Rassilon? And what did that woman mean, ‘rebelled against the President’?”

“Lord President,” the Doctor corrects. “I unseated him, after he arranged for me to be tortured for four and a half billion years.”

“ _Four and a half-_ ” Graham begins to exclaim, which, in the Doctor’s opinion, is about time to change the direction of the conversation.

“You guys stay here while I have a little chat with some old pals of mine – the Tardis will protect you, but she’s an old model of Tardis, despite the upgrades. If they try and fail to get in, ignore them. If they _do_ get in, actually, physically get in – come along quietly, except ask for my counsel if you think something’s gone wrong.”

Graham looks at her in bafflement. “Doc…”

Luckily, Yasmin puts a hand on his arm, perhaps sensing the whole torture thing is not something the Doctor wants to explain. “We’ll be alright. Call us if you need help.”

The Doctor nods, but doesn’t promise anything. Usually, it’s too dangerous for Humans to be on Gallifrey in peacetime, let alone…let alone whatever they call _this_. Pushing past her friends in a friendly manner, the Doctor double-checks she has her sonic and the psychic paper, for good measure, before slipping out through the doors.

No guns await her. The full squadron of guards still do, though, the General at the front as predicted. However, the grim countenance, her mental presence tinged with fear…it’s not what the Doctor was expecting. It makes her uneasy.

The Doctor waits for the General to say anything. Anything at all; and eventually, she caves.

“Honoured Doctor,” rumbles the General, before she kneels, followed by the whole squadron. The expected _Lord President_ doesn’t come – perhaps a gesture to her preferences or perhaps something else, something darker. The General bows her head for the briefest moment before standing. “You come at an auspicious moment.”

Not speaking – not trusting herself to speak – the Doctor flicks the psychic paper her way to share the message and the General’s reaction, flinching, knees wobbling, jaw clenching, tells the Doctor everything she doesn’t want to know.

“What happened?”

The General’s eyes flicker to her TARDIS. “Would you like to be escorted, or given directions?”

“You can come, if you like – but I brought my friends. They aren’t to be harmed.”

The General inclines her head. “We know the lengths you will go for them. You break the Laws of Time itself, against their will. Your beloved did eventually return-”

“ _Don’t._ ”

Anger boils within her, right by that old guilt and pain and love. _Clara_ , the Doctor bares her teeth, not wanting to hear a single word from the General.

Her friends are surprised to see her return, their eyes darting between her and the General, silently asking, _are you okay?_ The Doctor ignores her friends in this instance, looking to her second in command.

“Where are we going?”

The other Time Lord approaches the other half of the console, inputting the coordinates. “When you left again, we remade your House, locking Rassilon’s away in the Vault. The seed given to Housekeeper Innocet thrived until the Time War, whence it was erased.” The General inclines her head, a silent _sorry for your loss_ in every movement she makes. The Doctor knows she means to imply that her cousin Innocet is gone for good, something that hurts her, deep inside – the Doctor was always one of Innocet’s favourites. “We thought the new House empty, that it brought its own defences up – but we were fools. A Housekeeper of the Lungbarrow Chapterhouse was inside.”

_Was…no. That could- that could only mean it was one of us. One of my family._

“What are you not saying?” The Doctor demands, working in tandem with the General to fly her TARDIS the short hop and jump to the high end of Arcadia, where the old, _old_ Chapterhouses dwell, sunk into the city like trees.

They land. The General says, “It was unlocked when we arrived. There are bodies inside, preserved by the House because they are blood.”

Her head pounds. Echoes of psychic screams that come from death and torture waft across her like a wave at the beach. The Doctor runs to the door, slamming them open and barely getting her bearings before she finds the House.

Like her TARDIS, it calls to her mind, recognising her as the oldest member of the House of Lungbarrow. It wants her for Kithriarch – for the leader of her kin within its walls. _Forty-five for Lungbarrow,_ the Doctor remembers, desperate to prove there are less bodies than she thinks there actually are within.

The House itself is open, with an exterior just like the House of her childhood – a ramshackle mansion of five floors and uneven amounts of windows, three doors on the front-face at various level. The Doctor starkly recalls exiting each and every one – twirling down from the second by pole, leisurely walking the incline by the roof and stepping through the front door, like she does now.

“ _Doctor._ ”

“ _Lady President!_ ”

“ _Blessed one-”_

Time Lords greet her inside, like it’s any sort of building, not a crime scene they’re securing or a House they don’t belong in. The Doctor’s steps feel like lead and something in her mind shifts when her friends follow her in, the House recognising them as _foreign_. It forces her to stop, to look back and see them there, the General at their backs to keep an eye on them.

“I am the Kithriarch of this House,” she says aloud, not sure what else to try. When the House latches onto her as Kithriarch and Housekeeper, she has to wonder why its last Housekeeper abandoned it. She dearly hopes it wasn’t because of the children, but she knows she’s wrong. “You are welcome here, Yasmin Khan, Graham O’Brien and Ryan Sinclair.”

Around them, the House murmurs and groans in a way that her Humans can barely hear, enfolding their minds unto itself and remembering them. It’s less subtle than the TARDIS and the map that flourishes within the Doctor’s mind, upon her asking, is clearly given to them, too.

“Woah…” Ryan looks this way and that, in awe. “This is your _home?_ ”

“The Tardis is my home,” the Doctor corrects, turning away from them and following the trail of guards to the centre of the House; the Housekeeper changed the original floor-plan, though what with the ever-changing nature of a Gallifreyan House, that’s a rather simple explanation. What is the Great Hall of the House _now_ , was once known to the Doctor as That-Empty-Room-With-The-Broken-Teleport.

 _It’s not broken anymore,_ the Doctor thinks, feeling all the changes with every step, the House guiding her through it, giving its report like the loyal being it is. She enters the room. The Doctor’s eyes are drawn to bodies, her mind cataloguing numbers, species and ages. All are children – most, if not all being bipedal, yet every single one: dead.

The Doctor approaches the line in which they’ve been laid.

“The majority have been identified as hybrid Gallifreyans,” a nearby guard informs her. Their tone is measured and clear – not pitying or fascinated by the fact. It makes the Doctor less likely to attack them. “By order of the Grand Master of the Prydonian Chapter, their timelines were followed backwards to point of conception. They number thirteen dead out of a predicted thirty.”

“ _Thirty?_ ” The Doctor echoes. It seems unbelievable to her, except she was never celibate – and really? She’s so old that it’s far more unlikely that she _doesn’t_ have children. Thirty is such a small number, in comparison.

Her hand is shaking when she kneels, reaching out to touch the head of a boy with curly hair and blank, blue eyes. Hysterically, the Doctor thinks he looks like Jack Harkness and then there’s a mournful cry, one that comes from _her_ – from _the Doctor_ , who feels arms wrap around her chest when she attempts to reach for another child, a girl with blue hair and grey skin whose faded presence feels like the psychic paper.

“Grieve,” says the General, dragging her away from the bodies. Her arms are like titanium bands around her chest, the Doctor too out of her mind, too lost and too hurt to slither out of her grasp. She thinks she sees her friends – but all she can think of are the children.

 _They’re mine and they’re dead, they were killed and they were mine – they were **murdered**_. Not even the embrace of her TARDIS can calm her. She howls. She yells and sobs, screams for the young lives taken from her before she even knew they existed.

The General holds her tightly, in a safe, enclosed hold and whispers again and again, “ _Grieve._ ”

* * *

Murmurs from the Time Lords discussing the vulgarity of _Humans on Gallifrey_ can’t distract Yasmin from the sight past the double doors. Collapsed against the wall with Ryan, Graham sat down heavily on a bench opposite, Yaz finds herself unwillingly playing back the scene – the moment she saw the Doctor throwing herself at the corpses of the children, like if she hugged them enough, they would wake up from their deathly sleep. The sound of the Doctor’s sobs haunt her.

“Who were they?” Ryan mumbles. “She hasn’t been back here, I don’t think. She don’t know half of what she should.”

Yasmin looks at him like he’s dumb. “Ryan, are you-” and she cuts herself off, because no, wait – it wouldn’t be obvious, not unless you were thinking clearly. Yasmin is barely thinking clearly herself.

Ryan looks her way. “What? Do you know who they are?”

“Ryan,” Graham starts, voice low and caring. “The Doc is old. She’s travelled the universe for billions of years…and if you think she’s not done anything with a member of the opposite sex, I’d advise you to think again, son. Those kids…”

“They’re her family.” Yasmin tries to make it simpler for Ryan, who seems to be mentally blocking out the only option left. He has that _look_ in his eyes that she recognises from Sonya and Yaz knows, at least, that the Doctor stepped up where Aaron Sinclair didn’t. She puts a hand on his shoulder, bracing him so she can rip off the band-aid. “Ryan, they’re _hers._ All of them.”

The dawning expression in his eyes shows his horror. “No,” he shakes his head, “those _can’t_ be hers. I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it.”

Yasmin turns her head sharply, looking up, only to find another Time Lord – _Gallifreyan?_ – standing wearily by the door, dressed in a pale pink coat with felt buttons and matching, rose-coloured spectacles, indigo hair piled on top of her head.

“My name is Celesia – an old cousin of the Doctor’s.” She introduces herself with a short nod of her head, hand laid out to show off a hologram. She flicks through it, tapping a file; it expands to show a three-dimensional image of a blonde girl. “All but this hybrid child are fathered, as it were, by the Doctor. This girl is a puzzle, DNA-wise. I’m heading the genetic investigation and compiling the Chapter notes on each of their lives.”

“Investigation?” Yasmin plucks the word from her speech and slowly stands, realising finally, that there is more to do here – that they can put their skills to use. “Are you a scientist?”

“Of a sort,” Celesia says, pushing her glasses further up her nose. Behind them, Yasmin thinks her eyes are just as pink. “I rather fancy myself a Renegade, such as my cousin, though I’m no Time Lady – I’m not fond of needless death, not after what happened to our House.”

Having no idea what she’s referring to, Yasmin can only nod. She gestures to the room behind them. “What is going to happen to their bodies?”

The first flicker of unease appears on her face. “If they were full-blooded Gallifreyans, they would be buried. If they were Time Lords, cremation would be necessary – burying Time Lords has never been a good idea, for reasons I’m still not sure on myself. Nevertheless…” the self-named Renegade shakes her head. “Traditionally, hybrids are studied by universities. It’s a common practice, but one I fear will not be so easily accepted by the Doctor. I only have minimum control over the bodies themselves – I can only stop them from being taken away, as the representative for the Grand Master of Prydon.”

“That’s good enough,” Yasmin says, Ryan nodding along as he stands with her.

“Yeah. The Doctor would want to look after them the best she can. They should have a funeral.”

“Well,” Celesia gestures to the room. “The only way that is going to happen is if we secret them all away – or rather, publicly steal them. I’ll order the guards to transport them to the Zero Room in the Doctor’s Tardis. You three are her friends – make sure she is not in the console room.”

A sense of purpose fills her. Yasmin agrees to the Renegade’s terms, getting a shift on so as to make sure the Doctor is nowhere near the console room when the bodies start to arrive. Around them, the House groans and to herself, Yasmin imagines it mourning the children, just like the TARDIS will or maybe already does. From what the Doctor has told them in the past, Yasmin can’t help but imagine them both as alive. Perhaps, one day she’ll have the courage to ask.

 _We have to have courage for the Doctor, now,_ she thinks firmly as they leave the shadow of the House. The TARDIS seems so very distant – and yet, it’s a mere ten feet away. It’s what lies inside that Yasmin fears, not knowing whether the Doctor will be the person she remembers. Grief transforms people and this shock-horror is an abominable way for the Doctor to change. Yasmin thinks, _we’re her friends and we love her. We’ll be whatever she needs._

But first: to make sure she’s _not_ in the console room.

Yasmin won’t force her to go through this again.


	3. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do have everything written up for this, barring the epilogue. Will post in twos every day or so, unless I get impatient. Please do pay attention to the warnings, because it's only going to get worse from here - and if you're interested in my thoughts on Time Lords, please ask! Most, if not all things about Gallifreyan culture in this are irrelevant to the plot.

The market streets of Erador are crowded and bustling, podiums lining the wide walkway with speakers from all across the planet. The Doctor carefully wanders through, the sonic beeping quietly as she gets closer to the teleport signal. She abruptly halts when she discovers it’s behind a podium, the speaker on said podium twisting around to face her.

“Do you believe?” The speaker asks them, her red eyes bright and angry. “Do you want to support my initiative to create an investigative team, dedicated to discovering the truth?”

“Actually,” the Doctor says, tongue like lead. “I want to know more.” At the base of her podium, titles describe her ‘initiative’ and the Doctor feels awful, knowing she took it too fast – that the trace would have been better, if she hadn’t been so impatient.

It’s been sixty years since Kera of Erador was abducted.

The woman – Kera’s mother, according to the sign – barks a bitter laugh. She hands the Doctor a circular disk and returns to her preaching, letting the Doctor open up the information packet. A 2D holo, it holds several thousand terabytes of data, listing six confirmed ‘children of the Doctor’ who had been taken in the last forty centuries throughout the galaxy, as well as another suspected eight and all the data into the investigations that had been held.

 _Kera,_ the Doctor thinks, glad that she doesn’t recognise the little girl’s face. Like her mother, she’s from a species of albino’s, with white skin and hair and red eyes; she smiles on the holo-pic in the centre of the data.

She forces herself to look at the other children. Of the other five, she only confirms three to be dead and out of the suspects, only one. She remembers all their names, burns the lost ones into her mind and recites them under her breath.

_Demetrius._

His picture is of a scowling Catkind boy, arms crossed over his furry chest. White and caramel markings set him apart, as well as being the ‘oddity’ from being a single child instead of a litter.

_Todd._

A girl with bright eyes and a toothy smile gabbles on in a short, repeating clip about why purple is her favourite colour. She’s a Solonian from ten years before the end of a Season – a Spring Solonian if the Doctor isn’t mistaken; though, she’d never have become one of the Summer people, not when her base form wasn’t insectoid. The Doctor thinks she would have made a great opera singer though, one day.

_Hila._

One of the suspects, rather than confirmed, until now – a Venusian child whose parents refused to investigate their disappearance. The Doctor recognises one of their mothers from a birth-mark. Venusians are always grey-skinned and blue-haired and Hila, the Doctor knows, was one of the main telepaths supporting the psychic scream, begging for help.

_Tal._

Another Venusian and another familiar parent. Non-binary, just like Hila and only a little shorter and narrower-faced, of identical colouring. They could be twins. In their holo-pic, their hair is in two scruffy buns and they looks out onto a flaming sea, content.

It bothers the Doctor that she recognises Hila’s mother. It bothers her even more to recognise the dark outline of a tattoo across the shoulders of Kera’s mother – her name is Lora, the Doctor recalls and they spent the afternoon together after the Doctor escaped the grasps of the local Royal pageantry. Her body with the pretty hair made that child, created that sweet, missing girl whose face will most likely be plastered across holo-disk for as long as her mother lives.

The Doctor tucks the disk away in her pocket, treasuring it for all its worth. It has given her names and faces to watch out for. The Venusian child, Nir, a girl called Itai; a Peledonian Martian named Ghulam and the suspects, two Trion’s respectively nicknamed Fi and Cen; a Vinvocci girl called Fumiko and a Summer Solonian known as Tomomi, who had been thought to have not survived his ascension.

The more that the Time Lord learns, the more she wants to travel back to each of her previous faces and geld them. So many children and so little time, especially now that the Doctor is running parallel to their kidnapper’s timeline. No-one has told her who it is and frankly, she’s unaware whether they even know the identity of her crusading cousin, who seems out to collect and kill every last one of her hybrid children. It’s a monstrous cause.

“Could be Owis,” she mutters to herself. Owis has always been a controversial problem and a half – never meant to be Loomed into existence while the Doctor still lived and the count of cousins remained _45_ , her youngest cousin had lived his whole life in House Lungbarrow before she finally returned and got things sorted – or he, rather. It had been her seventh body, back then. Nevertheless, Innocet had taken responsibility for Owis and-

 _And now Innocet is gone, supposedly,_ she thinks, though wouldn’t be surprised to find her cousin claw her way back to them all, now that the Doctor claimed Kithriarchy. She can hear the House in the back of her mind, thrumming, calling her back home constantly. Innocet can be the Housekeeper again, if she lives – the Doctor wouldn’t have it any other way.

Celesia, she’d seen skulking around the edge of the laboratories. Yaz seemed taken with her. Her cousins Glospin, Saathralope and Arkhew are all dead, she knows – and Maljamin has been missing for longer than all their House issues put together. Unless more Lungbarrow’s have been Loomed – and assuming Innocet is really dead – that only leaves ten obvious suspects.

Upon entering her TARDIS, a blinking light of an incoming call catches her attention. She answers. _Speak of the Devil and he shall appear,_ the Doctor thinks as Celesia greets her.

“ _Cousin. I have information which may be important for you to know._ ”

“Alright. Tell me,” the Doctor orders, not in the mood for a happy reunion. Celesia, thankfully, doesn’t seem to mind – she never really was into the whole big emotional display, throughout her regenerations.

Celesia swipes her hand across an invisible computer, a data packet transferring across to her TARDIS. “ _The team dedicated to back-tracing the teleport’s previous destinations thought two places to be significant. The first, because it was visited twice, though only retained one additional passenger-_ ”

“The Arena of Morag,” the Doctor reads.

“- _and the second,_ ” Celesia continues as if she hadn’t interrupted, “ _Demon’s Run._ ”

Her hearts pound. “What? How? When?” Those seem to be any and all the questions she’s been asking, lately.

“ _Before your visit. They retained use of the base several hundred years before your skirmish. The Order of the Silence is notable on Gallifrey for its paradoxical nature, namely the creation of the entity known as River Song, your wife. If she wasn’t so key to your timeline, no doubt the Celestial Intervention Agency would have been dispatched._ ” Celesia informs her in a steady tone, though the curious nature the Doctor detects after the mention of River isn’t unexpected, given the topic. “ _The laboratory visited by the traveller in question spent a significantly longer time there than the other locales._ ”

“Why?” The Doctor asks, but a sickening churn in her stomach comes from the theories that race through her mind. They took one of her children from Demons Run. A laboratory. How they got there…

Celesia grimaces. “ _A time-scope of the area prior to its destruction revealed a significant operation. We were unable to identify the cousin who dismantled it._ ”

“Celesia! Tell me!”

“ _They were growing hybrids. Unsuccessfully. The cousin disposed of your genetic material and the remains of one hundred and four unsuccessful projects. With the time-scope and an additional artefact, we extracted the data for viewing – I’ve gotten the Grand Master’s approval to deadlock seal the information against you._ ”

“That’s not fair,” she pleads, clutching the console tight. “I want to see that.”

“ _No,_ ” disagrees her cousin. Celesia folds her arms behind her back like a soldier – _no, she fought, I can tell, that’s not right, Celesia was a pacifist –_ staunch in her belief that the Doctor shouldn’t see what she’s seen. In a way, the Doctor understands. She doesn’t want to.

“ _Two hybrid children survived past infanthood, but the older suffered a brain aneurysm on the onset of puberty, somewhat expected for a Human-Gallifreyan of their age. The younger was taken._ ”

The words are cold in her mouth. “Human-Gallifreyan,” she says, knowing that they wouldn’t have taken chances; there’s only one other whom they would have tried growing a child of her DNA with. The Doctor hangs up on Celesia, hands hovering over the controls. It hurts to think of. The _one_ person she tried to procreate with, the _one_ woman with whom it was impossible…

She looks at the data packet, her theory proven correct. But more than just the few the Doctor identified have names, now – the packet is an update on everything they’ve discovered so far, bless Celesia for her diligence. Briefly, the Doctor wonders where her friends have gotten to – hopefully, they’re just in their rooms. A quick check of the TARDIS systems revealed they’re somewhere within the bowels of the TARDIS, which is enough for the Doctor. The names of her children are fresh in her mind and the living ones are in danger.

 _My friends are safe, at least,_ she thinks, before piloting the TARDIS away from Erador.

There’s something she needs to do.

* * *

“Hmm, a little cheeky, don’t you think?” River judges, getting a scoff from Evangelista. The other woman runs a hand down the edge of her swimsuit – for Evangelista at least, it’s racy.

“Anita will like it though, won’t she?”

A laugh tumbles out of her mouth, wistful. “Of course.” River drinks her champagne, trying to ignore the way it filled to the top again with just a thought. Evangelista, happy with her choices, disappears into the wardrobe, which is now a door straight into the swimming pool.

“You’re sad, again.”

“Oh, Charlotte,” sighs River, looking to the little girl. “Sometimes, I just want to forget.”

Charlotte frowns. It’s one of the things she can’t do – forgetting equals deletion and there were too many close calls with Other Dave’s memory when they tried to delete his death. He recalled ghosting like a bad dream and deleting it unravelled him until he was barely data at all. Sometimes, River still meets shades of him in places you’d least expect. Charlotte is still building him back together, piece by piece.

River hasn’t seen the real Other Dave in centuries.

The way Charlotte blinks and stares at nothing is new, though. River watches her tilt her head and frown at whatever is taking her attention with thinly-veiled interest, desperation itching under her skin for want of an adventure or three.

“You are not in my memory banks,” Charlotte says, speaking to no-one. A long moment passes before Charlotte shakes her head. “I won’t let you. You could be a virus. I don’t know why Doctor Moon hasn’t- …oh. I see. I’ll allow that – but you only have three search opportunities…you’re welcome, Doctor.”

“Doctor?” River says, looking to the place where Charlotte gazed upon and discovering a new person entirely – a woman with blonde hair to her shoulders and wide, hurting eyes, dressed in a long grey coat and boots, with braces over a red rainbow shirt.

“Uh, hello,” she says. _My love,_ River thinks, hearts pounding in her ears. “I’m the Doctor. I don’t suppose you recognise me, do you?”

“Two search opportunities remaining,” states Charlotte, River unable to get a word in before the Doctor is rambling on.

“Right. Okay, got it – two left. Oh, this is hard. I don’t know whether you know what I know, I think you would have mentioned it when you were alive. Uh-”

“Stop.” River whispers. She stands, stepping forwards. There is no life in the Library’s databanks, but Charlotte plays well for a little girl; she can feel the Doctor breathing and when she reaches out, can touch her cheek. “I like the new look.”

“Thanks,” the Doctor takes her in with hungry eyes. River doesn’t know how long it’s been for this Doctor, but usually, they move on – this is unusual. “I love you,” she murmurs, like a mantra rather than a declaration, a reminder for herself and a confession bundled into one.

“I love you, too,” says River, before giving her a chaste kiss. It’s all she allows herself – especially when she knows that in the depths of Charlotte’s databanks, there are facsimiles of her husband, false copies which River can spend her time with, if she wishes. Already, she can feel Charlotte creating an echo of this Doctor just for her; she feels guilty for it.

The Doctor gives in, arms wrapping around her waist, head pressing into the nape of her neck. She’s small, in this body and River finds herself enjoying being the big spoon, clutching just as tightly as her wife.

“I’m afraid to ask what you’re doing here.”

A shift. The Doctor cranes her neck back, their foreheads colliding gently. “It’s not an easy topic. Never has, for us. I’ll upload what data I’ve got into the Library once I’m gone, in case you want an easy read.”

“What’s the matter, my love?” River asks her, anticipation rising. What could be so problematic?

The Doctor seems to read her mind. “It’s worse than you think. It’s awful and I hate that I’m the one that has to tell you, especially when this is our first meeting. I should start from the beginning.”

“Do that,” River encourages.

She breathes deep, hair falling over her eyes. It gives her depth of a sort – the Doctor doesn’t move to push it out of the way, not for a long moment, tucking it behind her ear. It tells River just how unbothered she is by the change from man to woman, from short hair to long hair. _How long has it been?_ She yearns to ask.

“I got a message on the psychic paper. Screams. Kids, in danger, calling out for help.” Almost immediately, her yearning turns to cold sorrow. River tightens her grip on her wife. “I was led to Gallifrey, to my own Chapterhouse – I’m the Kithriarch again and the Housekeeper, besides. I need to find a replacement.”

The Doctor is rattled. Her words come faster. “They’d already been inside, the last cousin to be the Housekeeper abandoning it, so they could investigate. They-” and her voice cracks, grief palpable.

“The children,” guesses River, feeling ill at the thought. Charlotte behind her makes a noise of discontentment, not liking that River is so unhappy. “What happened?”

“We’re still looking for the rest,” the Doctor says. Despair coats her tongue. “All of them, mine. I didn’t know and one of my cousin has them, they’re killing them, _murdering_ them. River-”

“Oh Doctor.” Her hearts break for her, though something else festers for a moment – an old longing that bubbles under her skin, then cracks open and floods like a broken dam. Never in her imagination could River have ever thought the Doctor to be a parent again. The closest she ever came was the girl, Jenny, who lived and died in a day on the planet of Messaline. River remembers that story well.

“Why did you come here?” She eventually questions, pressing another tender kiss to her lips. The Doctor didn’t come here for comfort – she said at the start that it was about something dear to them both, that River might have but might not have known. She shivers. Whatever the Doctor thinks River might not know could be a million things, when considering her upbringing.

The Doctor raises her hand, cupping her chin, thumb stroking her cheek. “The Time Lords I’m working with traced back the teleport they used. They left it behind when they escaped with my kids. One of the previous destinations was Demons Run, River.”

It’s like a slap to the face. “That’s not true,” River denies immediately, desperately. “It can’t be.”

“One hundred and four unsuccessful projects,” the Doctor quotes, as if there’s something to be quoted at all. River feels like screaming. “Two living, breathing children survived, out of that handful – except one didn’t, because Human-Gallifreyan hybrids rarely ever survive to adulthood and this one didn’t. Let’s make that one hundred and five, then, shall we?”

“I don’t need your bitterness right now, Doctor!” River snaps, though the Doctor immediately curses when Charlotte’s states in a trembling voice, _one search opportunity remaining._ River feels lost at sea, like she’s misplaced something – like something has been stolen from her. “Don’t,” she pleads, softer. “This isn’t fair.”

“On either of us,” the Doctor murmurs in agreement. For a long moment, there’s silence, until the Doctor continues. “My cousin took them. Him. The Time Lords extracted the data and I found out that they just called him ‘Boy Song’. It’s terrible. _Boy Song._ They didn’t even give him a name.”

“Terrible,” River echoes, but she’s too caught up in the fact that she has a son – and that he has been _taken._ “This is our worst nightmare.”

Her answering laugh is hollow. “River.” She says her name like she’s an idiot and maybe she is, River realises almost immediately. The Doctor didn’t just tell her about their own child being taken. “This is so many times worse than that. Thirteen of my children are dead already, in the space of what felt like less than a month. All of them, eight years old. I could tell.”

 _Thirteen._ “How could you tell?” River is afraid of what the answer to her question will be.

“Hybrids like them age like us, like Gallifreyans,” the Doctor says, voice muffled as she presses her head to River’s shoulder again, “and despite the differences, from being hybrids of other species’ – that’s how old they looked. Eight. The _perfect_ age to become Time Lords. All they’d have to do is look into the Untempered Schism and crack their minds open, trying to cope – with their physiologies? Would have triggered regeneration instantly. They’re not like you, they weren’t exposed in-utero. Hybrids physiologies can’t handle the raw power Time Lords wield.”

“Do you know how many are missing?”

“Nineteen.”

It’s a scary number – nineteen children to save. All of them the Doctor’s children by blood. It makes River feel small, makes her want to be less than useless, stuck in a Library where she can’t do _shit._ Something she thought of before – that she thought impossible – comes to mind, a something that could easily be done, now that Gallifrey is returned.

“Sweetie,” River starts, voice low and soothing, “Not to distract you, but should the Library become hooked up to that lovely Time Lord Matrix, then I could be a lot more help than right now.”

“It’s not that simple,” mumbles her wife, “but I’ll get someone on it. Perks of being President. They’re using my personal sigil, now. It looks awful. They should have kept the Prydonian Seal.”

A laugh escapes without permission. “Oh? Well, I’m proud of it. My wife, President of Gallifrey – what does that make me? First Lady?”

“We’re not American,” says the Doctor, mumble more like a grumble, now. “You’d either be elevated to First Minister in the Senate or offered a place on the High Council, if you were involved in politics. You’d need to be, to qualify for security measures inside those buildings. If you weren’t into politics, then you’d just be my wife and given your own set of bodyguards.”

River scrunches up her nose. “Bodyguards – how annoying. I think I’d rather be free to run around as I pleased.”

“Same.” The Doctor presses a pretty kiss to her bare neck, then kisses her properly, lips to lips. River imprints this moment in her _favourites_ section, feeling the data collate and save. The Doctor obviously feels it too, because she leans back and makes a face. “What was that?”

“Nothing to worry about,” says River, before Charlotte speaks up.

“Your search opportunities have been extended. How many more searches would you like to have, Doctor?”

“Charlotte Abigail Lux, you silly little girl,” the Doctor murmurs, looking over River’s shoulder. “I don’t need many, but I’m not exactly here to ask your ‘databank administrators’ questions. I’m here to talk to my wife.”

Charlotte shrugs. “It’s just protocol. I don’t mind – I just need an official reason, unless you want Doctor Moon to stop you.”

“Alright then, that’s not so bad a reason.” The Doctor muses briefly, before finally unwrapped herself from River’s grasp, holding her hands instead. “I’m going to find them. I just needed to ask if you knew…I needed to know.”

“I never knew,” tells River, saying what they both already knew to be true. “But do me a favour. When you find them all, Doctor, bring them to visit – and give our son a real name.”

“Rory Junior?”

River smiles. “I’m sure my father would love that, but no. Daddy dearest will always be Rory to us. No need to give our son a complex or make his siblings jealous.”

“Ugh, jealousy,” the Doctor makes another face. “I can’t believe that’s something I’m going to have to worry about. I’ve not had to juggle this many children since before the Time War.”

“You’ll have to get back into practice, then.” River squeezes their joined hands. “I’m upset I won’t get to have this with you. I always will be. Our time is gone, though and with it, my opportunities. However, it is dreadfully mundane here at times – no offence meant towards you, darling.”

Charlotte shrugs. “I’d like to be connected to the Matrix, like you said. We could make lots of new friends. It’d be like having visitors in my Library again.”

“I _will_ get you hooked up, Cal, I promise,” the Doctor says, strength in her voice. It makes River hope for the future. “Soon.”

“Soon,” River echoes, before letting herself have one last kiss. It tastes like freedom. “Go and find the children, Doctor. Give them my love.”

The Doctor, for a moment, looks vulnerable. River nods, encouraging her to leave – and then, she’s gone. The pixels in the air switch and all she can see is the closed wardrobe door.

Charlotte’s hand sneaks into her own. “She’ll be back,” she says, confident. “We’ll make new friends and have adventures with them – do you want to be Indi Johanna, again? I’ll even mix in some of the old versions, like the Holy Grail, if you like!”

Lip twitching, River agrees to play the 31st Century remake of Indiana Jones and her world changes in an instant, Charlotte forever by her side.


	4. Chapter Three

She catches them outside the Zero Room, looking like naughty children for how shocked and guilty they look. The Doctor is suspicious in an instant, though her eyes lock on the bloodstains on their sleeves and the smell of _time,_ of other Gallifreyan’s who have stepped foot in _her_ TARDIS – and entered _her_ Zero Room.

“What are you doing?” She asks, not willing to take any answer but the truth. She shifts, waiting. Her friends look between them, Graham stepping forth and hesitating before taking her hand. It confuses her. Why is he holding her hand? She asks him.

“Because…because they’re here, Doctor.” Graham tells her, quiet and solemn. Ryan opens the Zero Room – Yasmin trying to conceal the sight with her body and failing miserably, as the Doctor is struck with the faded sensation of a scream. Psychic messages linger around her species, even in death.

“They’re here?” The Doctor repeats, getting a nod from Graham. Ryan shuts the door right as she sees a pale, floating hand, their chipped nail-varnish a pale pink. Her lip wobbles. She clamps down on it, refusing to cry again. Instead, she forces out the word, “Why?”

“Celesia, she didn’t think you’d want them going to- well, to be studied.” Graham is apologetic, but correct; Celesia is perfectly right that the Doctor doesn’t want her children poked and prodded like lab-rats. “She also asked us to tell you that one of the children might not be yours, specifically.”

“Which one?”

“She said that her name was Mazlyn,” says Yasmin. “I took a photograph, just in case.”

“How is she not mine? Whoever found them was tracking variations of my genetic signature, they had to be,” the Doctor insists, grasping at the only piece of logic in this entire operation.

“Celesia called her a ‘genetic puzzle’, like it didn’t make sense to her.” Ryan shuffles between two feet, jerking his thumb towards the Zero Room. “Said the room would keep them preserved. How? It wasn’t cold.”

“It’s a Zero Room,” the Doctor says, voice hollow. She steps back. Away. “It’s not meant for what it’s doing, but Celesia was always handy with tech, never really specialised much as a kid. She could rig the Tardis that way if the old girl agreed. It’s like a sensory deprivation room – blocks out electrical signals and radiation, meant for relaxation or healing of the brain. I’ve been in there before, when I’ve been hurt or after a regeneration.”

“Suppose that’s why they call it a Zero Room,” says Graham, before an uneasy tension settles across them. Graham cringes as he asks, “What do we do, Doc? How can we…can we help at all? With anything?”

“You’ve already done enough,” the Doctor tells him, trying not to sound harsh. She didn’t want her children’s bodies so close – but it’s better than what would have happened otherwise. It’s control she isn’t prepared for. She will never be ready. Jenny’s untimely death proved that.

_I should go get her._

“We’ve another corpse to pick up.”

Her friends revolt at her words, Ryan panicking and asking, “Did you find another of your kids?”

“Not in the sense you’re thinking. Come on – I’ll tell you on the way.”

And the Doctor does, telling them about Messaline’s week-long war and their progenation machine, from which Jenny was created – her very own genetic anomaly. She was blonde and vivacious and so very, very young.

“When did she die?”

“Less than two hours after her creation,” the Doctor finishes, answering Yasmin’s question and regretting not making sure all of their weapons had been secured properly. “Gunshot. For me. She couldn’t regenerate like me – she’d not been granted that power, or maybe it was too soon. Another month alive, maybe she would have lived. I left her behind because I thought her body was safe being disposed of on Messaline.”

“Hold up,” Graham starts, sounding shocked as they enter the console room, “Do you think that Mazlyn was _her_ clone? That those bastards used her DNA and-”

“ _What?_ ” The Doctor interrupts, horrified. Things fall into place. The idea sprouts. “Yes. No. I didn’t- yes. That could be where Mazlyn’s from.”

She rushes to the TARDIS console, looking at each and every set of time and space coordinates. She finds two in the same galaxy as Messaline, but only one in the right time-zone: fourteen years after Jenny died.

“I don’t understand,” she says, numb. “How? She would-”

_I should have checked. I should have taken her with me._

Her daughter survived. It’s the only explanation. Jenny lived, then went on to have a daughter of her own. The Doctor feels the blow of her failures the same way it felt upon hearing the name _Demons Run._ Her daughter is alive.

But Jenny’s child is dead.

“This isn’t _fair!_ ” The Doctor yells, hitting the console hard enough to fracture her hand and dent the metal. The TARDIS makes a noise of disapproval and the Doctor shouts intelligibly, most likely scaring her friends. Everything that has happened is unfair. The Doctor wishes she knew her children before this happened – she wouldn’t have taken them in, but she would have been there, would have been there to pick up the pieces when they inevitably outlived their families and let them decide their futures.

Now, she’s going to be the featuring character of their nightmares, if she even manages to save them. Kidnapped and- and perhaps even witnesses to the murder of their siblings. The Doctor wants to retch – stumbling across the room and throwing up behind a crystal pillar doesn’t make her feel any better, though.

Her friends surround her, Ryan the one to take the plunge and rub her back, holding back the longer lengths of her hair.

“ _Gack,_ ” she coughs, clearing her throat and stepping back into Ryan’s waiting arms. He hugs her from behind and the Doctor allows it, reaching up to grasp his arm, so she has something to hold onto. His warmth is exactly what she needs in that moment.

“Do you need to sit down?” He mumbles.

“I know what to call _Boy Song,_ ” the Doctor replies, not expanding upon her idea. A part of her – while the rest thinks it unlikely they won’t at least understand – knows her 21st century friends aren’t well-practiced in breaking gender norms and sharing her son’s name with them will only confuse them.

She breaks the hug, making sure to give him a short one in return around his neck, before returning to the TARDIS console and washing her mouth out with a custard cream or three. The old girl has already plugged in the time-space coordinates for Messaline and she braces herself for the confusion of the colonists when she opens the doors.

 _I can’t remember his name,_ the Doctor thinks, recognising the young man standing by the empty desk where Jenny’s body laid. The Hath beside her is familiar, too – Martha’s friend.

“Hi,” she slips on a fake smile, pretending. “The Doctor made a mistake, said he wants to bury Jenny himself. Where is she?”

The man’s jaw works for a moment, before he says in a shocked voice, “She went off. Stole the rocket and flew away. Going to do some running.”

“Running,” the Doctor repeats, thinking, _love the running._ “Alright. I’ll chase after her.” Darting back into the TARDIS, she changes their destination to a week after Mazlyn’s kidnapping – knowing that if Mazlyn isn’t her granddaughter, then at least Jenny is alive and flourishing, somewhere in the vast and wide universe.

“Where are we going, Doctor?” Yasmin asks.

“Mazlyn’s home-town.”

The Doctor struggles to stay standing as the TARDIS complains, the Time Lords already having put a detection and capture devices on the surrounding area. She gets past it with little more than a flash of her face on the monitor when they contact her, the journey smoothing out as the old girl is released.

Parking in an alleyway, the Doctor exits with her companions at her back, somehow unsurprised to find Jenny standing there. Her face is shadowed, loss clear as her confusion. The woman glances over her shoulder, looking for pretty boy, but instead of trying to explain, the Doctor greets her with a reminder.

“A sum of knowledge, a code, a shared history, a shared suffering.” A pause. A step forwards into the alley. “She’s inside. Dead, along with twelve others.”

“I don’t know who you are,” Jenny says, face twisting with grief. “Is that a code? To tell me you’re a Time Lord like my father?”

“Two hearts – Donna showed me,” the Doctor edges on, until she’s within touching distance. She takes Jenny’s hand, pressing her fingers against her pulse and checking Jenny’s too, for good measure. “I don’t understand how you lived. We would have come back for you, Jenny. You look the same.”

“You look different,” she whispers, before flinging her arms around her. The Doctor welcomes the hug, carding her fingers through her hair. It’s long and loose, pale blonde like her own; they look related, this time around. Jenny shudders, tears soaking the collar of her jacket.

At the edge of the alley-way, a middle-aged woman with coal hair and an expression of disbelief turns the corner and stops, staring at the group. It takes longer for the Doctor to recognise her than it did Jenny.

Jenny herself pulls away, looking back. “You left her behind, too.”

“Yes, they did,” says Susan, who comes to stand just as close as Jenny. “I’d call you grandfather, but that doesn’t fit anymore, does it, Doctor?”

“Not quite, but this is my first go ‘round as a woman. I don’t mind being called it, though. I was always _‘grandfather’_ to you.”

Susan nods, then puts a hand on Jenny’s shoulder. “Do you know where to find my cousin?”

A sting of pain. “My Zero Room.”

“She’s dead, Susan,” Jenny interrupts, before Susan can get her hopes up. She wipes at her eyes, desolate. “Susan found me when I was having Mazlyn. My mind was haywire – wasn’t ready to be growing a child along with itself.”

“She heard you,” the Doctor registers, uncomfortable at the idea that Susan was in the same galaxy as she was, back when she was pretty boy. Looking at her granddaughter, the Doctor wonders what she thought of it all – of the Time War and all the voices of her Chapterhouse disappearing.

Susan smiles thinly.

“Introduce us to your new friends. Then, we talk, you and I. You owe me that. ‘Some day’ was too long ago for you to use that as an excuse.” And then there is anger as she glares and hisses. “Hunters came for me dozens of times, all of them looking for Time Lords. With them came stories of a war that ravaged Kasterborous and destroyed-”

“And nothing!” The Doctor interrupts, finally glaring back. “Don’t talk of things you took no part in.”

Susan scoffs, “You wouldn’t get to tell me off if you were the President of Gallifrey!”

“Well, I am, now – maybe that will get you to take me seriously, at least.”

In an instant, Susan shuts up, the new information stalling her questions. The Doctor doesn’t like this. While the Doctor is ecstatic to find Susan alive and well, her granddaughter from a family long gone _here_ , _in front of her,_ the idea that Susan expects the young degenerate who cared little for Humans and other lifeforms scares her.

“I want to see her,” says Jenny, bringing them back to the original purpose of their meeting. The Doctor brushes her hair back, kissing her forehead in sympathy before leading her back towards the TARDIS – something, she realises, that Jenny has never entered nor seen before.

Her muted awe upon the TARDIS entering lifts the Doctor’s hearts. Her eyes glimmer with that old wonder for a moment before her grief returns; and Susan- well, her bafflement is something to smile at.

“It’s very…colourful,” says Susan, clearly scandalised. Her eyes drift over the Doctor’s friends. “Certainly, your new assistants are of a different breed to Ian and Barbara.”

“I met Ian again,” the Doctor recalls with fondness. “He became headmaster of your old school, back in Coal Hill. One of my other companions taught English there – he got married to Barbara, by the way! All of that was a long, long time ago for me, can barely remember if that happened when you were still around!”

Susan is wistful. “Oh, travelling with you was an exciting experience, Grandfather. I’m surprised you’re still doing so – wasn’t it just to be a century away from home?”

“Ah, a century, right…” The Doctor clears her throat, cringing as Graham scoffs.

“A century? Talk about four and a half billion years, darling – and that was just whatever the Time Lords did.”

“One hundred years isn’t a lot, to me,” the Doctor admits sheepishly, knowing she needs to correct any misconceptions about those few billion years. She never should have mentioned that.

“What the Time Lords _did?_ ” Jenny points in concern, the distraction bringing her back out of her grief. Susan is gaping. The Doctor wonders if her granddaughter will be the tell-all, here, if something doesn’t scan right with whatever the Doctor says.

Waving it off is impossible, but she tries anyway. “I’m alright. Just a little misunderstanding – honestly? I lost track of my age after the four thousand mark.”

“Grandfather,” Susan starts, staring at her. “I am an adult in my own right, if only a mere eight hundred years. Our species is not meant to survive to a billion, let alone four.”

“Extenuating circumstances.” The Doctor says grimly, jerking her head towards her fam. “Meet Graham O’Brien, his grandson, Ryan Sinclair and Ryan’s contemporary, Yasmin Khan.”

Susan bobs her head briefly. “Sirs. Madam.”

“Fam, meet Jenny, my daughter and Susan, my granddaughter – aunt and niece duo, who found each other. A miracle, considering how wide the cosmos is.”

Yasmin says, “Hi,” while Ryan nods in greeting with a friendly, “Yo.” Graham, however, goes the extra mile.

“I wish we were meeting under better circumstances. Yasmin has a photo on her mobile, if you want to identify your daughter properly, before…”

“Here,” Yasmin takes it out with shaky hands, Jenny rushing forwards to take it from her, cradling the device in her hands. A trembling nod. She pushes the phone back into Yasmin’s grasp.

“Mazlyn. She’s- she’s really gone. Stars, I never thought- I was hoping-” and she cries, Susan offering her the comforting arm she needs while the Doctor and her companions fade into the background.

Susan, over Jenny’s shoulder, asks the Doctor, “Might my room be in the same place? I know your later regenerations offered your friends permanent shelter.”

“There are too many rooms, too many remodels – you’d get lost trying to find your way back to the same place,” the Doctor says, quiet. “Feel for the TARDIS, if you aren’t already reconnected. She’ll show you the way there, make Jenny her own space nearby.”

Susan nods. “Thank-you, Grandfather.”

“You’re welcome.”

The women wander off, disappearing into the depths of the TARDIS. The Doctor sags, wiping her face as she revels in the meeting that just took place. She sees her friends staring.

“…granddaughter?” Ryan says, struggling. The Doctor smiles at him briefly.

“Not the only grandfather-grandchild pair I’ve had on board, before. Susan was the first. We stole this Tardis together from Gallifrey. Her mum had just died and she left the Time Lord Academy without saying anything, came with me on an adventure. The Tardis broke down in nineteen sixty-three and that’s where we met our first Humans that became our friends. Took them with us, kidnapped them by accident. Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright.”

Fondly, the Doctor tells them, “They were brilliant. Barbara was a character. Proper feminist, her and she loved Ian so much, by the end of it. Physics and history teachers of Coal Hill School, Coal School Academy, now.”

“So-” Yasmin glances where they disappeared “-you’ve had others in here, before?”

“Hundreds,” the Doctor admits, “and most of them were Humans. Vast majority, at least. I’m fond of your planet and proudly call it my home. I’ve protected it for long enough – I even had a job, see! Proper job and everything, no desk though. Had a lab, once and a car.”

“Who would give _you_ a job?” Graham raises an eyebrow, causing the Doctor to cross her arms, defensive.

“I can get a job! I’ve _had_ jobs, Graham. Dozens of jobs!”

“Do you have a pension?” Yasmin asks curiously. The Doctor gives her the stink eye.

“I don’t need a pension.”

“So, no,” chuckles Graham.

“You’re all ganging up on me,” the Doctor complains. “Ryan! They’re ganging up on me!”

Ryan shifts, moving to nudge her side. “Well, they ain’t wrong.”

“This is mutiny – I can take you home at any time!”

“We’re here till the end,” says Yasmin, eyes glittering. “Promise.”

The Doctor snorts. _My best friends,_ she thinks, looking at them with love. Fondness seeps through her chest and she can feel the reciprocation. It’s in the air, all around her and she sighs.

“Love you, guys.”

“We love you, too,” Yasmin replies, before she’s in the middle of a group hug. It’s hot and makes her feel gooey inside, wondering why her previous incarnations ever thought going without companions was a bad idea. Happy for a moment, the Doctor lets their warmth enfold her, until she can no longer hold her thoughts back anymore.

“This is nice,” she admits, before pulling back. “But we’ve been idle too long.”

“Gallifrey?” Graham asks.

“Gallifrey,” the Doctor confirms, the noises made by the TARDIS engines summoning Susan – but not Jenny. Her granddaughter flicks switches with her and takes over one pilot’s worth of six, easing their way. When she puts on the dampeners, the Doctor pouts. “I like the noise.”

Susan quirks an eyebrow. “You like the sound that comes from leaving the parking brake on?”

“It’s traditional, at this point.”

Her granddaughter hums, as if not believing her and the Doctor scowls for a brief moment, eyes drifting to the long list of names on her screen. Her scowl tightens into a flat expression.

“Why _are_ we going to Arcadia?” Susan queries, distracting her. “How did you find young Mazlyn in the first place?”

“Hard question – hard answer.” The Doctor says, before they materialise in what should be Celesia’s laboratory. “One of my cousins have gone on a mad kidnapping spree, taking children from all around time and space and returning them to Gallifrey, specifically, the new House Lungbarrow, to murder them. They’ve since disappeared with over half the expected number.”

Something niggles in her brain – a connection that snaps into existence the moment the Doctor pays attention to it. She straightens, feeling Susan’s mind wriggling alongside her own from a familial bond, then another presence: Jenny. Unlike with Susan, there isn’t a former bond to reignite and with Susan’s emotions starting to drift across – all horror, all grief and shock – the Doctor doesn’t let it form, not yet.

She can hardly deal with her own emotions, let alone Jenny’s.

Susan, upon feeling the bond, closes the door on her end. Her emotions stop seeping through, but she’s a constant presence for whom the Doctor can attract and connect with, if she so wishes.

“That,” her granddaughter chokes out the words, “that is unfortune. Why did they take Mazlyn?”

“Thought she was Jenny, most likely,” the Doctor says. “They’re all eight and they’re all my blood – your aunts, uncles and what-have-you.”

“Yeah,” Ryan says, adding, “They even got one kid who was grown in a lab, whose mum was the Doctor’s wife.”

 _Susan is clearly having a hell of a time_ , the Doctor thinks sarcastically, watching her struggle with the information Ryan just fed her. The TARDIS doors open – Celesia knocking on the frame as she pokes her head in.

“Cousin, hello. You’re blocking the entryway to my lab.”

“Too bad,” the Doctor says, abandoning the console to head towards her. This time, rather than letting things go unsaid, she hugs Celesia tightly and briefly, re-establishing their own familial bond. Celesia’s surprise is obvious – she says a mental _hello_ to Susan upon feeling the Doctor’s own mental link with her.

“Mazlyn is my granddaughter,” the Doctor tells her. “You don’t need to look any further into it.”

“We aren’t – we traced her timeline back to your progenated child, the one called Jenny.” Celesia hugs her back reluctantly, then releases her. “We did, however, get permission to talk to the woman known as Kovarian, if you want to be involved in the interrogation.”

Like a hound on a scent, the Doctor nods, deathly eager to talk to the woman who dared build _Boy Song_ and his sister from hers and River’s genetic templates.

“Where?”

Celesia bares her teeth – out for blood, just like the Doctor.

“Where else? The Grand Master has her in Prydon House.”


	5. Chapter Four

The Doctor has only once met the Grand Master of Prydon House. It was at her initiation, when she saw into the Untempered Schism and ran – they were the one to grab her by the shoulder and look into her eyes, to see exactly what she saw. Then, they were a hulking, old man with a flat nose and mathematical equations running rampant on his face.

Now, they’re a woman. Tall, hardly frail, but definitely still old and weathered with stick limbs and arthritic fingers. Her tattoos are the same and her stare is still cold and very, very old.

“Lady President,” the Grand Master greets her, not having to raise her voice or shout to be heard. The quiet audience room full to the brim with Prydonian Time Lords is testament to that. “You have not stepped foot in this Chapterhouse since your second graduation.”

“You have Kovarian,” the Doctor attempts to dive right into the matter, but the Grand Master waves her hand.

“Quiet yourself. Time in a Dial does not merit true age, despite your claims to otherwise.”

“I remember it, so it does.”

The Grand Master ignores her and if she weren’t in charge of a third of the Time Lords on Gallifrey, the Doctor might have argued harder.

“You were known as Theta Sigma as a…youngling, then you were known as the Doctor,” the Grand Master states, reading off an old piece of parchment. “You discarded your name during your ninth regeneration, though I see that didn’t last long. Your involvement in the Time War will not be discussed – we all did our duty there.”

“I was still the Doctor, then, though I didn’t know it,” she whispers. “I’m always the Doctor, even when I say I’m not.”

“Of course you were, are,” the Grand Master meets her eyes, looking almost- almost _scared_ for a millisecond. The Doctor must have imagined it. “You hid under Chameleon Arch, taking on the alias of Professor John Smith in the year nineteen thirteen. You returned quickly – a primarily useless effort, according to the records. You take that name, ‘John Smith’, whenever you attempt to go incognito on the planet of Earth – you are overly attached.”

“This sounds like a scolding,” the Doctor crosses her arms. “When are we getting to the real reason I’m here?”

“In due time. You will wait.”

“My children could be _dying,_ so no, I will not simply _wait_ ,” she snaps, hands splaying across the long, high table between them. Her knuckles are white. “Children of my Chapter are being murdered and I’m in linear time with it. I don’t have a moment to lose. Get to the point, Grand Master.”

The Grand Master stares briefly, then inclines her head. The centre of the table between them starts to sink inside a box-frame, the Doctor jerking her hands away as it lowers, then shifts to reveal Kovarian herself in chains. The dais she stands on causes her to face the Grand Master and the Doctor rushes around, pushing fellow Prydonians out of the way.

 _A trial,_ she thinks in panic, also knowing this isn’t where Kovarian ends – the Doctor had made sure of that. If the Grand Master decides her fate is to be _removed_ – or worse, erased – then her timeline will shift and change, until not even the Doctor could know the difference.

“Kovarian is off-limits for erasure, remember that!” The Doctor reminds the Grand Master in a short exclamation, the woman herself – still wearing that eyepatch, still in that black suit, never changing – looking the Doctor’s way with a frown.

“Her fate will be decided by me and me alone, Doctor.”

“Doctor?” Kovarian whispers, looking around. It must seem like an impressive gathering, with the hundreds of Time Lords in staggered rows all in traditional orange and red dress. Even the oddities among them – like Celesia in pink and _oh, is that Romana in green, far up in the eaves?_ – are stone-faced enough to impress.

“You are facing the Court of the Prydonian Chapter,” the Grand Master states. “The hybrid children of the Time Lord known as ‘Doctor’ have been removed from their timelines by an entity unknown. Your involvement in the unlawful creation of one said hybrid has been determined. What say you?”

“You’re talking about the boy,” Kovarian mutters. “The man took him. He called himself ‘the Cousin’, when introducing himself to the boy. He destroyed our research and emptied the facility.”

“What did he look like?” The Doctor wants an answer, not knowing what she fears the worst – if he has the face of someone in the room, or she describes the regeneration of a cousin that they know.

Kovarian looks her right in the eye and sneers. “Doctor. You’re looking… _feminine._ ”

“It’s all part of my charm. Tell us about the Cousin.” she demands.

The Grand Master puts up a hand. “No. Pay the Doctor no note, Madam Kovarian. I am your judge and jury, today.”

Kovarian’s confidence only grows, as does her sneer. “And who are you? Nobody noteworthy. It’s the _Doctor_ whom the Order care about.”

“Tasha Lem and I were friends, by the end of your precious Order,” cuts in the Doctor, getting a disgusted look from Kovarian before the Grand Master speaks once more.

“I am the Grand Master of the Prydonian Chapter, the most powerful person on Gallifrey barring the President and her Council – and the President is beholden to me, while she refuses to take on her role.”

Kovarian rolls her eyes, looking altogether bored. It reminds the Doctor uncomfortably of River.

“She’s not going to listen to you,” the Doctor says to the Grand Master, who barely acknowledges her. Looking at the ruthless woman on trial, the Doctor blows a bit of hair off her eyes. “Hey. Kovarian – I know you wouldn’t have let the Cousin go without completely scouring the situation of ways to get even. What do you know?”

“What do I get in return?” Kovarian questions.

“You already have assurance I’ll stop them from erasing you from existence. At most, you’ll get a mind-wipe out of this.”

“Oh,” she mocks, “but I do so _love_ all the orange, Doctor.”

“Information,” the Doctor smiles sharply. It doesn’t escape her notice that the Grand Master has gone silent. “ _Now_.”

Kovarian grimaces, obviously seeing her impatience and unwillingness to bend. “Fine. The man was insane, quite clearly. He muttered things. Place-names. Times. The Yule of seven hundred and eighty-nine AD, Stonehenge, Earth. For some boorish notion, we checked – he never arrived.”

“Time Lords work differently,” the Doctor says, almost distant as she imagines it. “You were never part of their business. You should have seen it from me, especially – the universe isn’t synchronous, things overlap. You couldn’t track down my next move, unless you were in front of me in my personal timeline.”

Kovarian’s brow knits as she thinks. “How…disorderly.”

“Your understanding of time is limited, but that’s alright,” the Doctor says kindly, belatedly recalling the site of her defeat lies under Stonehenge. A box from a fairytale. “Did he say anything else?”

Kovarian shrugs. “He told the boy he’d see into time itself and become what he was meant to be, plus variations on the same theme.”

The Doctor latches onto that. “What sort of variations?”

“I’m not a databank,” she sneers, “I can’t recall everything. It was decades ago.”

“Great,” the Doctor mutters, before the Grand Master adds her last piece.

“If we were to threaten the life of your biological relatives, would there be anything else you wished to add? Your brother has already been erased.”

Kovarian jolts. “I don’t have a brother.”

“She doesn’t have any siblings,” the Doctor agrees, angry at the deception. The Grand Master smiles at Kovarian and like her eyes, it is cold.

“How would you know? They don’t exist anymore.”

The fear wafting off Kovarian is practically visible. “He knew about the girl – the child who died at age eleven. He said he didn’t come for her, because she wasn’t whole enough.”

“But he went to the Arena twice,” the Doctor recalls, remembering the data she’d been given. A pair of Draconian siblings had lived there – Aminah and Nawab. The Cousin had visited both, the boy on the day of his death. _Why not take Nawab, too? If he’s taking them at age eight-_

“The hybrids from Morag’s Arena were under the influence of time-freezing technology,” the Grand Master informs her. “The motivations of this Time Lord of Lungbarrow are being directed towards your progeny who are of an age of eight, who survive childhood and presumably thereafter, adulthood.”

The Doctor grasps at the roots of her hair. “But why not take Nawab?”

“Perhaps,” starts Kovarian, eyeing up the Doctor with care, “he was the first the Cousin attempted to abscond with. Only, he died before he could be taken.”

“A plausible theory, for an ape,” the Grand Master states grudgingly.

“Thanks.” Kovarian rolls her eyes. “What even happens at eight years old to Time Lords?”

“We _become_ Time Lords,” tells the Doctor. “We look into the Untempered Schism, a gap in space-time. It’s guarded at all times.”

“Yes.” The Grand Master waves her hand, though from the Doctor’s position, she can see it shaking – and there’s something off about her voice, as Kovarian sinks back down into the table. “But the Untempered Schism is monitored and no unauthorised rifts can be opened within the sector. It is folly to believe that this ‘cousin’ is attempting to create Time Lords. The ape will be returned to her proper time and place and mind-wiped and this court will adjourn.”

“Okay,” the Doctor replies, uneasy. Something isn’t right. She can feel it. Curiosity sparkling, she motions to the table. “I’ve never heard of that being used before. Aren’t people just brought out in front of you?”

“They were. This was deemed of more import,” the Grand Master waves her off, then dismisses the Prydonians. “Curfew is now in effect for those of the Prydon Chapter, until the children of Lungbarrow are recovered.”

 _Something isn’t right,_ the Doctor thinks again, spine tingling. It baffles her that the Grand Master would deem this important, especially when she’s calling Kovarian an ape, as xenophobic as most Time Lords are. The Doctor looks at the table. Really – never in her long, long life has the Doctor ever heard of Prydon Chapter being able to hold prisoners like that. Discontent, she goes over to where Celesia is standing with a pudgy-faced Time Lord, who grumbles at the Doctor’s approach and neatly distracts her from the issue.

“Trouble follows you,” he says. He sneers at her. “Couldn’t keep your mouth shut, even in front of the Grand Master?”

Celesia sighs, glancing at the Doctor. “Ignore him. He’s still adjusting to normal life above-ground.”

“Above-ground?” The Doctor looks between them, having an epiphany. “Owis?”

Owis crosses his arms over his chest and yes, there it is, the forever petulant-child expression. The Doctor is surprised Owis is allowed out on his own – the last time they saw each other, there were more than a few admissions to murder.

“Ignore him,” repeats Celesia, but clearly, Owis has something to say.

“If not for you, cousin, then my life would be easier by far. Was it not you who saw to the downfall of our House?”

“If you mean literal fall,” the Doctor starts, hovering on a precipice, “then I hope you’re happy that there’s a new House, despite the circumstances.”

Owis swears at her. “I wouldn’t go near that abomination! I barely escaped Innocet’s grasp – _her_ House is awful and restrictive – _boring_ , Doctor! I’ll never go back there and I won’t step one foot in your precious, new, charlatan House.”

“Bit much, aren’t you?” She mutters to herself, brow creasing. “Hang on, what do you mean, _is?_ I thought Innocet’s House Lungbarrow was erased during the Time War?”

Owis rolls his eyes. “You are a fool to believe that so. Perhaps we truly are family, for by the strength and wisdom of the remaining cousins of House Lungbarrow, not including you, we trapped the House in a pocket of time and space like you did Gallifrey. It took Innocet’s last life to bring it here, to this miserable back-end of the universe-”

“Shut it,” the Doctor snaps, looking to Celesia for answers. “There are two House Lungbarrow’s?”

Her cousin makes a face. “I suppose there must.”

“Where?” The Doctor asks, “and how many people know of it?”

“Not everyone of our Chapter,” Celesia says, “but a fair few and the Grand Master, besides.”

An idea sprouts. The Doctor looks back at the table, the prison in which Kovarian is held. “Did you tell her here, in this room? Did you tell her exactly where the House is?”

“Of course,” says Celesia, frowning at her inquisition. Tucking an indigo strand of hair behind her ear and pushing her rose-coloured glasses further up her nose, Celesia asks in return, “Why are you so concerned?”

“I’ve never seen that before,” the Doctor says in a hush, audible to her two cousins alone as she gestures to the table. “I’ve never even heard _whispers_ of that thing. Have you?”

Owis and Celesia shake their heads, asynchronous but in agreement nonetheless; neither knew it existed, just like the Doctor.

Fidgeting, the Doctor says, “I have a bad feeling about this. I’m calling a meeting as Kithriarch. You’ll hear the call from the House in High Arcadia. Owis – intercept anyone that tries to go to the old House. I don’t want anyone going into that place until I’ve had a look. It might not be safe.”

Her cousin grumbles, but nods. “Fine,” he says shortly. “I’ll do your bidding, but only because you’re Kithriarch.”

“Oh and we’ll be having guests,” the Doctor adds at last minute, sensing another familiar presence approaching from behind. “So everyone needs to be on their best behaviour.”

“Humans?” Owis whines, guessing correctly. “Why?”

“Because they’re just as invested in getting my kids home safe,” replies the Doctor, before watching him go, Celesia sending her a message along their familial link: _I’ll go with him._ Once they’re far enough away for her liking, the Doctor turns to face Romana, who smiles widely at her attention.

“Fair Doctor.”

“Lovely Romana – how are things? I heard you got kicked from your Presidential seat after the war ended,” she questions, accepting the kiss to her cheek.

“I couldn’t exactly say ‘no’ to Rassilon himself,” says Romana, sounding amused if nothing else. “Would that you name me regent, then I’d never be removed from power again.”

“I’d name you my regent, if I had any idea of the shape of the Senate right now.”

“Wise Doctor,” Romana names her fondly, looking serene as ever – with less of a stick up her butt than when they met previously. Romana has changed. “Might I invite myself along to this meeting of yours?”

“Ah,” the Doctor winces, “rather not. Sorry, Romanadvoratrelundar, but you know how it is. Suspects and friends. There’ll be enough strangers as it is.”

Downhearted but understanding, Romana nod in agreement and changes the topic, asking of her adventures. The Doctor enjoys the turnaround and babbles on for at least an hour, aware but ignoring how other Prydonians linger in range, just to hear her mad stories. But eventually, she tears herself away and bids Romana farewell, scurrying out of Prydon House to her TARDIS, not quite expecting to see Yasmin and Jenny in the process of sneaking back inside.

“Uh…what’s this, fam?”

Yasmin startles and Jenny lets out an expletive, pressing the Human up against the TARDIS doors as her fists rise. Upon seeing her mother, the young blonde pauses.

“It’s not what it looks like.”

“It looks like you and Yaz went exploring, while the entirety of the Prydonian Chapter – the _only_ Time Lords who _might_ not try to imprison you for purported trespassing, mind you – were busy in Court.” The Doctor puts her hands on her hips, unimpressed. She pointedly looks as Yasmin, who’s no longer wearing her pink shirt and jeans, but a set of dungarees and an orange top. Suspicious, seeing as Yaz doesn’t own an orange top like that. “Yaz, I told you, it isn’t safe for Humans here.”

“I’m not Human,” Jenny points out, the cheeky missy, distracting her from Yasmin’s panicked expression. “Susan said she’d be fine, so long as I told anyone who asked that she’s under the protection of House Lungbarrow and to take it up with our Kithriarch if they were having trouble understanding.”

The Doctor makes a face, arms dropping. “Susan said that? Why didn’t she come with you?”

Yasmin has a sheepish expression as she glances back at the TARDIS. “Don’t know if she’s back, yet. Ryan didn’t think it right, to leave all them behind in the Zero Room alone and Graham stayed with him. Me and Jenny, we was just having a wander- uh, but we didn’t go far from the Tardis – honest. Anyways-” Yasmin clears her throat, hurrying along like the Doctor doesn’t want a full recap of their misadventure or an explanation for her wardrobe change. “We heard a minute ago that your Court had ended a while back, thought we were done for. Came back straight away.”

“And Susan said she needed to check on something,” adds Jenny, which catches the Doctor’s attention. Susan, checking on something?

 _There isn’t a lot that Susan knows on Gallifrey anymore,_ the Doctor thinks, recalling various landmarks destroyed in the Time War – places that were only further eradicated by the Master’s attack. Gallifrey is a different place than it used to be and the Doctor isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or not. Certainly, Susan never took part in the war – she wouldn’t know that her favourite tree was bombarded in six separate timelines alone.

Closing her eyes, she reaches out to her granddaughter, asking, _where did you go?_

Faintly, she hears the reply and it’s not like her own, made words and question. Instead, it is a feeling. A sensation. Warmth, the innocence of childhood, safety.

In an instant, the Doctor is rushing towards the new House. Her feet slam on the cobble roads, Jenny and Yasmin barely managing to keep up with her.

**_It’s not safe!_ **

Susan’s confusion is palpable at her shout. She replies with question and the Doctor calls herself stupid for leaving her granddaughter alone. She shouldn’t have just warned her friends, her daughter and her granddaughter from leaving, she should have outright ordered it – impressed upon them the danger of Gallifrey, of the unknown and the uncertain.

The faint worry she can trace back to Susan cuts off abruptly, suddenly, their connection completely blocked. The Doctor’s concern spikes and she runs harder.

The House of Lungbarrow is waiting when she staggers inside, the doors slamming open and the connection it holds to all the members of Lungbarrow singing out loud on her entry. It’s a banging drum, an almighty choir in her head – but no matter how hard she tries, no matter how much strength of the House she brings to bear, the Doctor cannot break through the walls of the psychic prison Susan is trapped in.

No-one would be able to, she’s painfully aware – breaking into Houses is impossible, after all, even disregarding any defences Innocet created for the second House Lungbarrow before her death.

“Doc- Doctor, what’s- what’s going on?” Yasmin asks, out of breath. She’s held up by Jenny, until the moment her daughter steps into the House and their positions switch, Jenny’s mind enfolded by the House and overwhelming her. On the Doctor’s mental command, the House welcomes her as the thirty-eighth member of House Lungbarrow, writing her name in the records and bringing her up to speed on the House’s functions.

“Susan’s been kidnapped. I’ve called the rest of my family here. If they know what’s good for them, they’ll gather here soon,” tells the Doctor. “Houses on Gallifrey are like my Tardis, except they’re older and they don’t fly. They’re living beings, loyal only to the Kithriarch and the designated Housekeeper. That’s just me, right now. When my family arrive, we’re going to have a meeting.”

“About what? The kids? Susan?”

The Doctor bares her teeth.

_“Everything.”_


	6. Chapter Five

The House is a hive of familiar minds and connections when she finally arrives, Owis in tow. Celesia revels in it for a mere moment, able to feel the palpable tension throughout the Great Hall – the Doctor’s rage strung across the House like burning stars in an ever-present sky. It’s almost oppressive.

Celesia counts ten of her cousins, including the Doctor; the three Human companions, Ryan, Graham and Yasmin; an unfamiliar blonde in a thin, grey rain-jacket and combat boots; and a final three spouses and four young ones. Overall: twenty-two. All of them stand around a great table, the Doctor at its head.

“Celesia. Owis.”

“Cousin,” they greet as one, settling into the last available slots around the table.

The Doctor taps it with her knuckles. “I, the Doctor, Kithriarch of the House of Lungbarrow of the Prydonian Chapter and Lord President of Gallifrey, bring this meeting to order. Before we get into the real issues of tonight, I want you all to know…” her gaze slides over each one of them in turn. “I’m glad you’re here. That you’re all alive and able to join me here in the third version of this House. I’ve not met all of you before. There’s some new faces and I don’t mean that in the regeneration sort of way.”

“Kithriarch?” One of the young ones startles, unused to the Doctor’s blasé attitude towards regeneration, a topic usually unheard of in casual conversation. The parent of said young one puts a hand on their shoulder to quiet them, but the Doctor only smiles.

“Hi. What’s your name?”

The young one looks at their parent nervously, gaining an encouraging nod. “I…I’m Kort. Kort Kappa.”

“Well, Kort Kappa, it’s nice to meet you – really. I wish it were under better circumstances.” The Doctor inclines her head in greeting, before talking to the rest of the table again. “Okay, long story short? Children of this house have been kidnapped, possibly tortured and murdered. The death toll currently numbers at thirteen, twelve being my own various illegitimate children and the last being my granddaughter, Mazlyn, daughter of Jenny.”

The Doctor waves at the unfamiliar blonde woman by her side, who raises her chin, trying to be stone-faced but failing – everyone in the room can sense the grief of her mind. Celesia can feel her psychic presence and know it to be uncontrolled and wild; she has rudimentary training, but her experience in holding it in place is that of a child’s.

“And the latest news on all of _that,_ ” the Doctor smiles a false smile, “Susan, once known to some of you as Arkytior, my granddaughter, has been kidnapped.”

There is an eruption of sound, then. Celesia herself lets out a surprised exclamation, horrified. She sees DeRoosifa snap the chain off his robe and Jobiska reach for her child in fear. All of sudden, the idea that the Doctor’s hybrids- _no_ , the Doctor’s _children_ , that the Doctor’s children are missing coalesces for true. Her guilt for not feeling it before magnifies a thousand-fold.

Owis is one of the few who have no idea who Susan is. He turns to Celesia in askance, eyebrow rising.

“A beloved member,” she describes lowly, finding herself unable to continue. There is no way to describe how much the cousins loved Susan, especially after her mother’s passing. The Doctor’s own betrayal in never returning her to Gallifrey was only forgiven when the Time War came to pass and they hid the second House; the cousins agreed that losing her that way was better than seeing her die.

“If you’re finished,” the Doctor interrupts the hubbub, voice cold and quiet. Her fist clenches. “There was a security tape of the kidnapper, who identified themselves as one of our cousins. If you know them-” and she throws a holo-image into the air above the table, turning a three-dimensional figure of a man clockwise “-speak now. I won’t ask twice.”

It’s the first time Celesia has seen this picture. The Cousin is tall, with fine cheekbones and a curl to the russet ends of his hair. Pale skin – and deep eyes, like he can’t stop thinking of deep mysteries and torments.

“I know this man,” says Rynde, her expression twisting into one of fear. “And so does Almund, Farg, Chovor, Luton and Salpash. You should too, Doctor, though you were the middle child. I would not blame you for your ignorance.”

“Who is it?” The Doctor asks, echoed by many around the table. Almund is the one to say it, disbelief prominent.

“It is Maljamin! But he cannot have escaped his prison-” says Almund, before Chovor shakes his head.

“Were you not at the Court, Almund? The woman Kovarian was within his own chains – of course, he has escaped! The Grand Master lost House Prydon in the Time War, in over thirty timelines; it would not be unthinkable to imagine he finally escaped.”

“Hold up, Maljamin was _imprisoned?_ ” The Doctor interrupts, clearly baffled. “I thought he went off to explore the galaxy or- or joined the CIA! Not that he was a prisoner! How did that happen?”

“He went mad,” says Farg. It’s all they say.

Almund dabs his brow with his sleeve. “He’s the oldest left of us. With Innocet gone-”

“He inherits her position as Housekeeper.” It dawns on Celesia in an instant. “He has the children in the House. The one unclaimed by the Doctor. The one we hid away, then returned to its rightful place on-”

“Mount Lung,” the Doctor finishes, removing the image of Maljamin and pointing at Celesia, eyes dark. “Celesia of Lungbarrow, I do so name you my Housekeeper. Do you accept this role, until the Kithriarchy see fit to give it to another?”

She stutters, caught off-guard. “Wh- what? _What?_ ”

“I don’t have time for this, ‘lesia!” The Doctor snaps at her and it’s a kick in the right direction, prompting Celesia to close her eyes.

Around her, she starts to hear the House whispering, reaching – calling.

“I accept.”

And while Celesia becomes Housekeeper, the Doctor turns to the rest of her family and orders them to stay inside the third House, until the moment she returns: except one.

“Owis,” she says, meeting him eye to eye. “You’re with me. Take me to Innocet’s House.”

Swallowing the lump in his throat, all rebellion in Owis dies a final death.

* * *

_ GALLIFREY – 1 YEAR SINCE THE LOOMING OF INNOCET _

_The patter of tiny, toddling feet echoes through the corridor, accompanied by high-pitched giggles; Maljamin smiles distantly, twisting around to catch the child before they barrel into his legs. Innocet squeals, their lovely little face lighting up in joy._

_“Mal!”_

_“Cet,” greets Maljamin, pressing his temple to hers in fondness. He feels her gentleness and her stubbornness, along with a childish urge to grab onto his brain and keep him with her forever. It is adorable and a naïve wish. “How you will flourish,” he says with a sigh._

_“Maljamin.” A low voice rumbles, disapproval clear._

_Maljamin pulls his mind from Innocet’s grasp, looking down the hallway to where Quencessetianobayolocaturgrathadadeyyilungbarrowmas, colloquially known as Quences, taps his foot and reaches out with one arm; clearly, the Kithriarch expects Maljamin to give him Innocet, the tiny Gallifreyan child already showing signs of disquiet at the tension._

_“They are too young for that kind of contact,” says Quences, fingers rippling in a ‘give’ gesture. “She must return to the Nursery, now.”_

_“I think they like being out of that environment,” Maljamin notes, feeling her curiosity. “My little cousin is in inquisitive one.”_

_Quences sighs. His hand falls. “Nevertheless, Innocet will only gain from the program. You may do as you wish, so long as she is old enough for it.”_

_The other’s mind sparks. “Even apply to the Academy?”_

_“It is unlikely she will make it,” Quences warns, though his disapproval melts into warmth. He steps forwards, taking Innocet from Maljamin and smiling at the little one. “But surely our hopes and dreams will prevail, one day; and if you are declined, then mayhaps your curious little mind will be put to the test in other ways. Inquisitive, Maljamin calls you – a researcher, perhaps. A hoarder of knowledge, or a scholar. A scientist.”_

_“A Time Lord?” Maljamin inputs, feeling the faint strains of disapproval again. Maljamin fights Quences’ thoughts. “It is not an unlikelihood that Innocet will become a Time Lord – we are due this honour, it has been too long, Quences!”_

_“Enough, Maljamin. Some things are just not meant to be.”_

_“We were once the best of them all – our House has fallen, to dust and dirt.” Maljamin sneers, knowing his words to be true. “We stood in the council of Rassilon himself and what are we, now? Bookkeepers, secretaries, **clerks**.”_

_“Enough!” Quences orders, words sharp and presence ominous, when the House itself is behind him. The Kithriarch and the House of Lungbarrow are formidable together and it says something to Quences’ control that Innocet is shielded from that. “You will not pollute this House with your business. Leave, then return at second sundown. Maybe your mind will be cooler for it. Your cousin will not appreciate the wildness of you.”_

_Maljamin barely holds back his snarl, spinning on his heel and heading towards the nearest exit. Second sundown – so, when Innocet is asleep and protected in the Nursery? No, Maljamin knows Quences’ game. Likely, he shall not be permitted to enter the Nursery alone after this – Quences’ judgements are forever, unless you are but a child._

_Roaming the fields of Mount Solitude, Maljamin kicks at the orange grass – not red like it should be, due to the recent rainfall – and stews in silence. He passes the three nearest Houses, sees their neighbours playing games and creating lively music for children of their families to dance to. Maljamin thinks this is why their House has fallen: their creativity lacks, their minds mediocre and tedious. Dull._

_Once, Quences told Maljamin he thought in too narrow a stream; one should have a broad mind and expect even broader people in life, the members of their House included. Though, he was trying to tell Maljamin why young Chovor didn’t memorise the same information as Maljamin had, at his age, pointing out how Chovor was much more artistically inclined in comparison to Maljamin himself. It was a lesson in the diversity of life._

_Maljamin finds himself tired of learning lessons from Quences. What does he expect Maljamin to do in leaving? Think on his wrongs? Maljamin was not wrong in anything he said – only bold in saying it._

_Looking out on the plains, the dome encasing the Citadel in the far distance glinting and glimmering in the light of the suns and of Gallifrey’s moon, Pazithi Gallifreya, Maljamin can’t help but feel a deep hatred for the Time Lords inside. Only ten percent of Gallifreyans ever see the Untempered Schism and only two percent of that ten go on to become fully-fledged Time Lords, graduates of the Academy and ‘honoured’ peers._

_Maljamin always wanted to become a Time Lord. His application was rejected._

_“Someone in my House will, eventually,” he tries to calm his mind. Rage at the unfairness of it all infects him like a virus. Maljamin has battled against it for so long… “Eventually is not soon enough.” He whispers to himself, then accepts his rage. Understands it._

_After Innocet, there will only be one more allowed to be Loomed for House Lungbarrow. Maljamin will see them become a Time Lord if it kills him, then all the cousins and members of his House after. He swears to himself that he will see it done._

_And if neither Innocet nor the 45 th cousin become Time Lords – then perhaps it’s time for a change in management, up there in the Citadel._

_Maljamin spits towards the ‘honoured’ in their glass dome, then turns back towards his House._

* * *

Josefa is too hot. In Chile, temperatures weren’t so stable as this strange building that the Cousin likes to call _the House_ – and it’s strange, but Josefa had grown used to the process of changing her internal body-temperature to better suit the weather. It became instinct. Her adoptive parents didn’t know how she could stand outside in the blazing sun, wearing a full set of clothes while her peers ran around in shorts and bare feet – but her parents didn’t know she’s a Zygon, either, so maybe that’s her own fault.

Perhaps Josefa shouldn’t have gotten so lax. Her original parent – her mother, for lack of a better word – caught an illness and died when she was five. She’d taught Josefa how to look after herself and make her body react like a Humans.

“You don’t look hot,” says Holly with a crease to his brow, when she mentions it. Holly is like her – a Zygon, pretending to be a Human. Except Holly’s mother was still alive, when he was taken. Holly’s mother had kept showing him how to change and transform; Josefa can’t remember how to regulate her temperature, not like him.

“Well, I am,” mutters Josefa, tugging at her shirt, trying to get airflow. It doesn’t work, which makes sense in a stable environment. Josefa instead lies on the ground, giving up on the whole ‘huddle by the wall’ technique she and the rest of them had taken. Only Emily joins her when she does, edging closer to her than usual.

“I don’t like touching people,” Emily had told her a week ago, when they first talked to each other for the first time. Emily isn’t Human or Zygon – no, she’s a real alien, with bright red skin and long, pointed ears that are in the same place as normal ears, but don’t look like normal ears. Josefa thinks she looks amazing, like a Human, but with soft, Zygon-coloured skin and no need to hide.

“Are you alright?” Emily asks her. Josefa spreads out in a star on the floor, not replying. “I- I can do something, if you like?”

“Don’t know what you can do,” Josefa mumbles. Emily’s psychic like the rest of them, but sometimes…sometimes Josefa knows she’s something more, when they’re all connected. They’ve been doing that more often, since the Message went out.

Emily snakes a hand towards her head, touching her skin. In an instant, there’s a feeling like she’s going to be sick, a _power_ flowing through her. Josefa curls up on instinct, but Emily doesn’t let go.

“It’s okay, just- just give me a minute.”

It feels like longer than a minute and then the Cousin comes, prying Emily’s hand from her head.

“She’s too young for your machinations,” they say chidingly, almost like they care. Josefa squeaks, scurrying back away from Cousin like she would a raging fire. They still hold Emily’s wrist and the girl looks almost… _hypnotised_.

“You’re old,” she says, “and strange. There’s something wrong with you.”

The Cousin does a Josefa, jumping back like Emily’s dangerous. “Ah,” they start, suspicious, “I forgot you can see timelines. Your species are all but wiped out, but that power…and there’s nothing wrong with me.”

“You’ve seen time,” Emily insist, pushing up onto her hands and knees. “And it changed you. It was wrong. It’s _still_ wrong. You’re making me feel sick to look at!”

The Cousin flinches and to Josefa, that is fascinating. She’s never seen the Cousin flinch before, even when Samantha tried to break his nose like Demetrius did; Aday was the one to lash out with her mind, that time, though Aday had lived, while Samantha…didn’t. Josefa misses Samantha.

“Quiet down, little one. You don’t know everything,” they warn, bitter. Josefa barely moves out of the way of their reaching arm when it swings outwards, grasping for the nearest child; Emery is the one to be grabbed this time and immediately, Josefa feels a pang of loss.

Emery is a Zygon, like her and Holly. The only other one in the room.

“No,” she mumbles, eyes watering. Josefa crawls back to Holly, uncaring of how warm he is, only seeking comfort as the Cousin drags Emery to the middle of the room and demands that he _sees._

She hides her eyes away. It doesn’t stop her from hearing the dreaded _snap_ of his neck breaking.

“Stupid children,” mutters the Cousin, hauling Emery’s body away. “You’ll never be Time Lords at this rate…”


	7. Chapter Six

The concept of seasons doesn’t seem to exist on Gallifrey anymore; time moves strangely, like it’s dead or inexistent. Everywhere the Doctor looks, there is just the dust of summer, mixed with ash and rubble. Out in the desert especially. The Doctor snorts. _Desert,_ she thinks. _Thi_ _s used to be moorland. There was a river._

This place was flattened by Dalek bombs during the war. Whole mountains have moved. The Doctor wouldn’t be surprised to find more Houses buried underground from trying to escape the destruction; House Lungbarrow itself was buried for nearly seven hundred years and that was just because of the House’s own turmoil over who was to inherit the Kithriarch. The Doctor was supposed to attend Quences’ death-day party and take over the Kithriarchy, but when they never arrived, the House revolted and sunk into the mountainside. Spoiler: the Doctor became Kithriarch, just like she was meant to. It was an adventure in itself.

But that’s a tale which could take up its own book. The Doctor refuses to dwell on her mistakes.

Owis fidgets as they walk towards the second House. His gait is steady enough, thankfully, but he can’t seem to halt the flutters of his finger and how they tug on his robes.

“It’s just up here. We didn’t go far from the last new plot,” he mutters. Raising her eyebrow, the Doctor automatically looks further south. It takes her too long to realise that the House on the horizon is her own. Owis finally stops, gesturing forth. “May I take my leave now, Kithriarch? I despise that place.”

“…yeah,” the Doctor finally replies, after a long moment of drawn-out thought. “Yeah, go. Everyone will be expecting you back at the House.”

She pretends not to hear Owis mutter, “This _is_ the House.”

Parting ways, the Doctor picks up speed. Innocet’s House is set into the western side of Mount Lung, indeed not far at all from the original placement, barely a kilometre difference; of course, it’s still within the Lungbarrow estate as a whole. Just…nearer the edge.

Nearer the House of Oakdown.

The Doctor isn’t sure what she’s expecting when she climbs the mountainside. Innocet’s House is on the far edge of their estate and House Oakdown has inexplicably moved, also. They’re barely quarter of a mile apart. She walks onto and then across the plateau, pausing to touch a tree that has been planted near the tall drop to the ground. It’s the sort of tree that will grow into the mountainside and eventually, become so tall and broad that it’ll curve out towards the valley. When it finally weighs too much, it’ll drop to the ground below. If the tree had existed in the Doctor’s childhood, all sorts of contraptions might have been set up to stop it from falling – it would be a beloved part of the estate.

“Do you like it? I rather do. It’ll make a lovely spot of shade in a hundred years.”

The Doctor doesn’t react to the voice. To _her_ voice. She approaches from nowhere, purple parasol resting over her shoulder, kicking at a stray rock – and Missy smiles when the Doctor finally looks at her.

“Loving the upgrade there, _Doc._ ” Her put-on American accent is both grating and something the Doctor finds herself immensely fond of. “Was that your whiny little cousin who shouldn’t exist, before?”

“Owis,” the Doctor names him.

Missy shrugs. “Whatever. Hermit-boy. He’s watching, stalling – keeps turning forwards and back every few minutes. A very indecisive boy.”

“Man. He’s grown – all my family have.” The Doctor pats the tree once before looking to Innocet’s House. “I thought you abandoned me.”

“Oh no, Doctor. Past me had this little knife, see and… _woops_ , he killed me.” Missy steps closer, locking her arm with the Doctor’s as she too, looks upon Innocet’s House. “I was resurrected. Again. How many times must a girl die before it’s for forever?”

“New cycle?”

“So new, I’m still glowing,” says Missy with a roll of her eyes. The Doctor doesn’t quite believe her there – she can feel her excess energy, for sure, but Missy is well past the first fifteen hours post-regeneration – but lets it go. “So, what are you doing here, Doctor? Reminiscing? I would have thought past-me would have taken up more of your attention.”

“Past-you?” The Doctor frowns, asking, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, darling,” and Missy tuts, genuinely seeming to pity her. “We’ll talk later. Right now, you can tell me exactly why your family have been killing each other in there – at least four of them have died. I’ve not been able to sneak my way in, not even through that backdoor you seemed to have deleted.”

Sighing, the Doctor gives her best enemy the run-down and explain exactly why Innocet’s House doesn’t have a backdoor. By the end, Missy has that _look_ in her eye – the one that the Doctor has always tried her best to tame, the look that says _my Doctor is hurting and I will obliterate the one hurting them._

“Dear Kithriarch,” Missy purrs, drawing deliciously close, not stopping till they’re breathing the same air, “will you let me into your House?”

“You are welcome in my House,” says the Doctor, voice guttural as she says, “ _Master._ ”

The Doctor can almost imagine exactly how the Master – the one who pretended to be O – would react to that. He’d smile so much he’d nearly cry, perhaps even shed a tear from how strongly gratified and noticed he feels; while Missy, well…Missy hums lowly and presses her lips to the Doctor’s in thanks.

“I do love it when you call me by my name,” she sighs, upon pulling away. Her parasol is closed and flung into the dirt, her strides long and purposeful as she makes her way towards Innocet’s House. The Doctor wipes her lips with the back of her hand; the skin comes back streaked with dark red.

“Certainly not missed _that,_ ” the Doctor mutters to herself, of a different opinion to Scotsman on how well she suits lipstick stains. Trudging forwards, she joins Missy from behind as the Time Lady flings open the doors to the House.

“Honey,” she sings in a yell, cackling, “I’m _home!_ ”

Her drama gives the Doctor the chance to synchronise with the House. It bends to her will – but the Doctor isn’t quite mentally strong enough to hold a connection to not only her TARDIS, but to two Houses as well. She makes the decision to trap everyone inside the third House, letting part of it go dormant – knowingly locking _out_ Owis. Her TARDIS similarly goes quiet, deadlocking her doors and going to sleep, just for a while.

The strain on her mind eases.

“Let’s have a little _chat,_ why don’t we?” Missy calls out, leading the Doctor through unfamiliar halls, stopping at the entrance of a Contemplation Room. Plant-life grows across the ceiling and in the centre of it all are bodies, laid out in a ring.

Maljamin crouches beside a girl, frozen as he stares at them both.

Cooing, Missy steps forwards, looking more like a predator than a person. “What do we have here? I think those look like the Doctor’s children, personally. Do you know what it means to be gutted, Maljamin?”

The Doctor reacts immediately. “No gutting. He’ll go on trial.”

Missy looks back at her with an incredulous face. For once, she seems deadly serious as she gestures to the bodies. “This man has _murdered_ your _children,_ Theta. This is not something that can be forgiven or judged by jury.”

“And I’d never let you imprison me,” says Maljamin, who stands tall and looks at them with such a dawning _reverence,_ that it puts them off. “You are Time Lords. The Doctor and the Master. Famous in your own rights…but you never would have been anything special, if you were not Time Lords.”

“Why do Time Lords fascinate you so much?” The Doctor asks him, stepping forwards till she’s level with Missy. She doesn’t take her eyes off of him.

She can’t bear to look anywhere else.

“And why kidnap my children? How did you know which ones would live past eight?”

“So many questions.” Maljamin smiles at her. “I looked into the Untempered Schism myself, at an age well-past eight. What I saw changed me. At least the one thing I can admit is that it’s true what they say: only those of eight years of age are at the right stage of growth to hold the capacity to see into time and come out as Time Lords.”

“That _isn’t_ what I asked,” the Doctor snaps, lunging forwards, only for Missy to hold her back. Her hold is tight like the General’s, preventing her from escaping.

Maljamin still ogles them both. “My apologies…but the standing of our House must be raised. Your children are all born with the innate ability to become Time Lords, just like any Gallifreyan – but I have been unsuccessful in activating that inheritance. I did not want to waste the lives of our pure young ones, when your half-breeds might suffice.”

“Okay,” Missy mutters, “Even I’m offended by that, for some god-awful reason. You’ve infected me with your morals and goodness, Doctor. I’m letting you go, so you can destroy him.”

Unchained by Missy’s grasp, the Doctor stands by herself – and doesn’t lunge again. Her anger simmers at low heat. She will not let it consume her, not now, not when she can feel the House in her mind – not when she can feel it asking in feelings, if not words, why she holds so much hate for its beloved Housekeeper.

That can be dangerous, if the House decides to take Maljamin’s side.

“You have killed members of our House,” the Doctor states, vibrating with emotion. “I’ve never even met them before. I didn’t know they existed.”

“And you wouldn’t have,” Maljamin’s smile becomes a sneer. “If not for that Draconian half-breed, you never would have known. Your compassion is a noted weakness. I didn’t want you to know the method to my science – our young ones would have become Time Lords without the approval of the Citadel Time Lords and you would have been proud and without guilt. It is a good dream, an _upstanding_ dream. Our House, rising from the ashes-”

“Mate,” the Doctor interrupts, “you really overestimate how much I care for things like reputation. I’m already so many things, President of Gallifrey included. Now, how about you show me where my kids are and then you tell me and my…Missy, here, how the hell you managed to collect them in the first place.”

The expression on his face smooths out. The Doctor doesn’t trust it. “Of course,” he says, perfectly courteous as he gestures to a side-door. “In here. I keep them together, so they don’t contaminate the rest of the House.”

“Right,” the Doctor pastes on her own smile, but it feels more like a grimace. Missy touches her elbow and if there weren’t another Time Lord in the room, the Doctor knows that when their eyes met, she would have had a message to give.

As it is, her gaze says _careful, Doctor._

Giving a slight nod in return, the Doctor walks forwards, feet taking her past her cousin to the door, which opens on her command. Inside the next room, it simultaneously breaks her hearts and fills her with relief to see sixteen children, scattered along the edge of the room. The Doctor is mute, memorising all their faces, feeling guilt at every frightened look and cringe. Some don’t even move at all – despondent and weary.

“I have tried to keep a pleasurable countenance,” says Maljamin, “but it is difficult when they fail.”

“Fail what?” Missy questions.

Maljamin looks at her with thinly-veiled shock. “At seeing time, of course – can’t you see it? It is everywhere! There, I can even tear it, see-” and Maljamin pushes past the Doctor into the centre of the room.

He stands under the central light, his hand pressing into the air. There are no tears, no ripples in the fabric of space-time, but there is…something. A faint feeling. Like the thread of a timeline being touched, ever so gently.

The Doctor pieces it together in an instance. She presses a hand to her mouth to choke back her scream of grief and looks away from all the young faces, who shouldn’t be strangers but are.

“Mad-man,” murmurs Missy, incredulous, of a similar line of thought. “You don’t know how to use those powers you wield. No wonder the children aren’t detecting anything.”

Maljamin looks wilder, now. His eyes flit between Missy and the Doctor. “But you see it, don’t you?” He confirms, “You know the other side of the tear?”

“There is no tear,” the Doctor tells him in a gutter voice. She tries to be kind, to be forgiving, but she can’t – she has no capacity for it, not for him. “Cousin…you looked into the Untempered Schism, but you haven’t changed right. What you’re trying to show us? It’s something that only Time Lords – and those _extremely_ sensitive to time – might be able to understand. What you see is just that: sight. You’re not even holding on or really even touching those timelines. You’re… _grazing_ them.” She gestures around at all the children. “And even if they had already become Time Lords? They wouldn’t be able to sense that. They’re too young. Far too young.”

“No-” Maljamin shakes his head, fists clenching. “ _No!_ I listened to her! Every day, every meeting and trial, I was there! I know the secrets of the Time Lords!”

“The Grand Master,” the Doctor guesses. “You were kept there, in Prydon Chapterhouse, imprisoned…but for what? For stealing a little look at the Schism?”

“Just a little,” whispers Maljamin, dropping to his knees. “Please, don’t put me back there. Have mercy, Doctor.”

One word – just _one word_ turns the room around. The Doctor is attacked from all sides, minds flying out at their own speeds and weights, crying out and _recognising_ her for who she is. The Doctor stumbles backwards as they all barrel into her and latch on, Missy catching her as she falls.

“There we go,” her old enemy says, sounding please. “Took the little ones long enough…now, to deal with _you_ , sonny-jim, without interference.”

_Father?_

_Doctor!_

_-really you?_

_-not a woman, are you like me?_

_Take me home-_

_-I want my daddy-_

_Is it **really** you?_

“Missy,” the Doctor croaks, struggling to get up as Missy swans past her, taking Maljamin by the ear and dragging him towards the door. “Missy, don’t kill him-”

“Why shouldn’t she?”

The Doctor looks to the speaker: a young boy in Humanoid shape with curly brown hair and brown eyes – but through their new connection, parent to child, the Doctor knows that this little boy is far from Human.

“Your name is Holly,” _and you’re a Zygon._ The Doctor feels the shape of his mind pressing up against her own, all presence and no walls to think of. She gets flashes of his home-life, of his mother and his school in 21st Century Oslo. “And we don’t kill. Never, _ever_ kill, not unless your life depends on it.”

Holly’s lip trembles – his bravery outweighing his fear – and he says, “But the Cousin killed the rest of us. They didn’t care.”

“Gender-neutral pronouns, look at you go,” the Doctor murmurs, surprised, though she shouldn’t be. Zygons are agender, for all Holly looks and calls himself male. Another mind starts to press against hers – a powerful child by the name of Emily, from a planet long-destroyed in the Time War.

“Em, Em,” the Doctor turns, twisting to see her. No-one is touching her and she so _desperately_ wants to be touched. It hurts the Doctor to lean back out and say _no,_ while also encircling her mind and holding it in a mental facsimile of a hug. “Emily. Sweetie…”

“Who’s that?” Asks a boy – asks _the_ boy, the one the Doctor needs to name. He knows River’s face from personnel files and with the endearment comes a feeling and so many memories, that he sees and latches onto.

Slowly, ones by one, the Doctor shuts a door on each of their minds. Some barely even sense the loss, but others adeptly – albeit childishly, very few with any sort of finesse – try to wriggle their way back into her head. The Doctor stops each and every one.

“I’ll tell you later,” she promises slowly, turning. “But I think I need some introductions, so I can set some boundaries for those of you that are still trying to worm their way back into my psychic graces – Dekon!”

Dekon – a Menoptran, so basically a wasp on legs, which is going to be something special to explain to her fam – buzzes in apology, antennae shaking with his guilt.

 _It’s been so long since I’ve had this many psychic connections,_ the Doctor thinks, remembering distinctly what she said to Donna. _That part of me died with them. It’ll never come back._ Pretty boy had been talking about his psychic centre, scarred and damaged from the loss of so many bonds; but now that she’s here with them all, she knows she was lying to herself, because her bond-centre is thriving from all the connections, new and old. Her children are a gift.

Part of her feels guilty for that, but her grief for the children who died in the second House is already packing itself away inside with the rest of her long-gone family. Only her cousins and Susan remain of that old family and right now, her cousins-

“Hold up.”

The Doctor turns three hundred and sixty degrees, eyes scanning every inch of the room once, then twice and then for a third time. Her hearts pound deep inside her chest, in fear and who else knows what. _No_. _Where…where is she?_

“Where’s Susan?”

A ripple flows through the room. The Doctor itches to open her mind up and hear what her children are thinking, but she stamps down that urge and instead reads their expressions. She wants to be sick again – because clearly, they have no idea who she is.

The Doctor wants to run around, to call for Susan throughout the House and find her, wherever she’s held prisoner. But the children are scared – they have been held hostage long enough. The Doctor weighs her choices and thinks towards her blocked link with Susan: _forgive me._

“Follow me,” she orders the children. Her children. For a moment, no-one moves and then, Kera stands up, all white skin and hair, eyes pink rather than red from lack of proper nutrients. After Kera comes Holly and Emily, then Dekon and Ryoko – the Menoptran boy and a Zocci girl with a wide grin. A trickle turns into a raging river and the Doctor reaches out to the House, asking it to take the Contemplation Room holding the dead someplace else.

When they walk through the door, it is into a kitchen.

“What’s that?” asks a Thal boy, called Robert Aden. He points at a fruit only found on Gallifrey and for the life of her, the Doctor can’t remember what it’s called.

“…you eat it like a potato. Or a radish,” the Doctor says, admitting, “It’s been a long time since I ate one. Forgot what they’re called. Sorry.”

There are other questions like that from a few, but most are quiet. It unnerves the Doctor, who is used to children like this, who need rescuing and aren’t the loudest – because these are _her_ children and they…they _do_ act like that. They do need rescuing and they _are_ really quiet. The Doctor almost expected them to be special, like her – to be lively and courageous in the face of danger. She shouldn’t, but she does. It’s been millennia since she had _expectations._

Faintly, she hears screaming and the House belatedly tells her that the Housekeeper is injured. The Doctor recalls that Celesia is Housekeeper of the third House, now and wonders…

“One moment,” she murmurs. They stop in the middle of a long, winding staircase down that the Doctor and Missy didn’t have to climb to reach them earlier. Concentrating, the Doctor thinks it through: two Houses, both of the same family, if not the same entity entirely, taken like an image snapshot from a time before the first went missing. If they were near each other, they’d likely attempt to absorb each other.

That sparks a thought.

“What if I could tow it? Combine them?” The Doctor says to herself, hearing a mumbled _what?_ from behind. She thinks of how her TARDIS towed the Earth home – compared to a planet, a House is infinitely more complicated, but more compatible and smaller by far. The numbers are feasible. It would take time to calculate…but no, not now. There’s too much to do.

Another scream echoes through the walls.

“…that’s our queue to leave,” says the Doctor, attempting to be cheerful. She leads her children onwards, like John Darling and the Lost Boys, smile becoming truer when they spill past her to escape through the open front doors.

“We’re outside!”

“There’s so many suns-”

“-and it’s _orange!_ ”

Babble echoes through the plateau. Emily and a Zygon girl, Josefa, run together out into the grass, squealing as another Thal boy called Zidon screams _CHASIES!_

Almost collapsing on the front steps, the Doctor reaches out to her TARDIS. It awakens, the strain on her mind becoming so heavy that it hurts; her TARDIS almost revolts, the familiar sound of her engines signifying her arrival on the plateau. The Doctor squints, catching how her children back away from the slowly-materialising police box. Her mind aches sharply.

 _Okay,_ the Doctor winces. _Maybe my bond-centre isn’t so much as thriving, as ‘overwhelmed’._ She can feel how it’s healed since first taking on the third House and reopening her mind to Gallifrey’s inhabitants to sense – but truthfully, it’s too much. The Doctor hasn’t opened her head this much since- since…

The Doctor can’t remember. It’s been that long.

“Father…” Alexis, a Human girl with long brown hair and deep eyes approaches, glancing back at the TARDIS. Her eyes are full of wonder. “Is that your blue box? The one you disappear in?”

“That’s my Tardis – Time and Relative Dimensions in Space.” The Doctor focuses on Alexis, feeling her little mind. It’s not as strong as others, her psychic presence undeveloped and distinctly Human in its bounds. Alexis stares at the Doctor in turn, until she crooks a finger, inviting her to come forwards.

She does as she’s told.

“You don’t know me. You don’t have to call me ‘father’ – or ‘mother’ or anything else. My name is the Doctor.”

“My mama taught me to call you ‘father’,” says Alexis dutifully, though she seems to like the freedom afforded to her. “Doctor. Do you have a degree?”

“In most things,” she replies, afraid to reach out and attempt to touch her. The Doctor hasn’t had any skin-on-skin contact with any of them, yet and she knows that when she finally does, it’ll feel real. Everything will sink in and the Doctor won’t be able to hold it all in, anymore. Flexing her fingers, the Doctor stands, shooing Alexis – and all the others who had stopped to join them – back towards the TARDIS. With a snap of her fingers, the doors open.

From inside Innocet’s House, the Doctor can still hear Maljamin crying her name.

“Everyone, into the TARDIS. Don’t press any buttons, but wander, if you like – I’ve got some last business here, then we’ll go!”

Alexis’ brow furrows, but one of her brothers grabs her hand and pulls her back, whispering excitedly about the legendary _Belot’ssar._ The Doctor identifies them as Martian from that alone – something she wouldn’t have been able to tell from looking. Most of her children look only one part of whatever hybrid sort they are, but there _are_ strange amalgamations of both, for some.

Once the children are inside, the Doctor shuts the doors again and distances herself from the TARDIS, who gently chides her before locking down once more. Once the windows go dark, the Doctor turns back to Innocet’s House.

She follows the screams.


	8. Chapter Seven

They’re in the year 789 AD – Stonehenge is looking admittedly gorgeous from the lack of 20th and 21st Century tourists leaping about and bashing off pebble souvenirs. The Master tightens her grip on dear Maljamin when he tries to escape, feet digging into the frozen dirt to keep him stable. It’s not like he could run far, what with the broken leg and busted ribs, but the intention is there.

“Now, now, dearie,” she murmurs, watching with him as the Doctor points her sonic screwdriver at a rock. “You’re the one who led us here.”

“The Grand Master will not like this,” warns Maljamin.

The Master grimaces. “That shrew can choke and die for all _I_ care.” She hides her surprise when the Doctor’s pointing actually makes a stone move. _Huh,_ the Time Lady thinks, wondering what other surprises the Doctor has in store for them as she hauls Maljamin over; unlike her, the Doctor’s cousin isn’t so shocked as uncomfortable.

“The Alliance built a prison for me, here. When they put me inside, the universe imploded,” the Doctor whispers. They walk down, the Master wishing they had some kind of torch – but the Doctor stops them suddenly at the sound of whispers.

_Interesting._

Through the corridor, in a large chamber with an ominous, dusty square box, stands an earlier version of Maljamin and the Grand Master in all her spindly glory.

“-tracked them all down. These are the only ones with the potential to become part of our glorious heritage,” the Grand Master tells him, handing over a device. She points at him fiercely. “Don’t get caught.”

Past-Maljamin shakes his head, scrolling through the device. “What about this one?”

“His fate is sealed. Don’t bother.”

“If he has potential, I must try. This work of ours-”

“ _Yours,_ ” the Grand Master corrects, scowling. “Your work. I merely facilitated this experiment. You earned your freedom and these resources. Nothing else.”

The Doctor, far back in the shadows, leans down to hiss in their Maljamin’s ear. “How did you earn your freedom?”

The Master ignores the Cousin, keeping an eye on the Grand Master – a good thing, too, because the past Maljamin is taking his leave. Hauling the both of them into the shadows, she presses them up against the dirt-covered walls and works her magic – mind tricks have always been her favourite and she’s been studying their Maljamin. It’s easy to trick the past version, especially when considering his degraded mental defences.

 _Life in prison does that to you,_ she internally sighs, knowing from experience. Seventy years is nothing to the centuries Maljamin has been trapped.

“Missy?”

“Doctor?” The Master bats her eyelashes, aware of how close she’s snuggling to her best enemy. She smiles at the Doctor, remembering another time where her mind was busy doing things while her physical self wreaked havoc. _That me was infuriatingly clever, but so very…naïve. He had his blinkers on, at least._

“Get out of my way.”

The Master steps back, taking the moment to kick Maljamin where his thighbone is fractured, doubling the damage. He makes a garbled noise of pain, collapsing to the ground. The Doctor looks at her scathingly, but otherwise doesn’t say a word. The Master sighs. She’s so happy to have her friend back.

“I’ll guard the wretch. You see to the Grand Master.”

The Doctor nods silently and the Master looks down at Maljamin, unimpressed at his whimpering.

“Oh, do shut up. This is going to be glorious to watch and I want to hear every single word.”

Maljamin glares at her.

The Master shrugs, uncaring, looking back to the Doctor as she confronts the hag.

_No-one is satisfied with losing fair and square, these days._

* * *

“You led him to them.”

The Grand Master ignores her, going to stand in front of the Pandorica. She holds out her hand, pressing it against the surface. Slowly, the tumblers begin to glow green, turning and unlocking.

“When they put you in this prison, they did not understand that their very actions were bringing about a future where their actions existed.” The Grand Master scoffs, hands returning into the volume of her orange robes. At least she left the headpiece behind – the Doctor hates those things. Very heavy. “I had no choice, Doctor. The abduction of your progeny, abominations they might be, is part of an eternal loop. It will never end.”

Anger boils inside of her again – ever-present at the moment and rather toxic, but in her mind, necessary. The Doctor snarls, fists clenching. Her children were **murdered** _._ “ _You_ gave him those coordinates! You _told_ him where to find them!”

The Grand Master turns to face the Doctor. Her eyes are tired and there it is again: that flash of fear.

“Only because the last Grand Master of Prydon House told me,” she says, “and because the last Grand Master of Prydon House told them. Bring young Maljamin out. Bring him here. He understands how this ends.”

The Doctor hears Missy dragging him across the floor, her eyes unblinking as Missy dumps him between them. Her cousin lies there on the floor, bedraggled and breathing as slowly as he can. She watches him look to the Grand Master in fear.

“Please. Don’t- don’t send me back-”

“It happened. You can’t stop it.” The Grand Master takes a vortex manipulator out from under her robes, along with a blaster. The Doctor and Missy back up in an instant, locked on the two Time Lords in front of them. “You have heard me whisper of decisions, of _growth_ – you know that I became a Time Lord not like my fellows, but through the ages of Gallifrey.”

“No,” Maljamin weeps, hand outstretched, his fingers lax. As the Grand Master carefully ties the vortex manipulator to his wrist without touching him, the Doctor finally realises the truth.

“You…” she points at the Grand Master, “You’re his future regeneration. You _time-travelled_ to the past and- and it became a loop! These events created themselves!”

“Yes,” agrees her cousin – not the one on the floor, but her cousin the Grand Master. The Doctor is shaken by the discovery. The Grand Master doesn’t touch her past self, but she does program coordinates in and lay the blaster against his chest. Her eyes are full of vulnerability – of _terror_. “This will hurt less than the Master’s torture.”

Maljamin isn’t given a chance to reply before she fires, the red flashing bright before he screams and disappears into the far, far past. The vortex manipulator leaves behind a smell of burning.

“…I was going to say that not even I’m that cold,” mutters Missy, “but, well…I did murder my future self.”

The Grand Master – _Maljamin_ – hides the blaster away in her robes once more. “I am old and I have many regrets in life. I do not want to pay for them.”

“But you saw yourself begin opening the Pandorica,” the Doctor says quietly. “You’ve come to terms with it.”

“As much as one can, while waiting for the moment.” The Grand Master looks faintly disgusted and now that the Doctor knows, she can see the same mannerism there from her younger faces. “And if you truly wish to know, the freedom I earned was the penance I made while reaping both the curse and fruits of my labours. I fought to end up here, politically and on the front lines in three Time Wars, long before you were-” She cuts herself off, shaking her head after a moment.

“You were going to say ‘born’, weren’t you?” Missy asks her wryly, like there’s something funny to that sentence. The Grand Master’s answering grin is more of a grimace and the Doctor doesn’t get it. She decides, like many things, that this is not the time. There are other issues.

“You’ve still got another fifteen minutes before that thing opens,” the Doctor tells her, gesturing to the Pandorica. “Where’s Susan?”

“Arkytior,” the Grand Master murmurs, shaking her head. “I know not of your granddaughter’s whereabouts, Doctor.”

“My bond with her has been blocked – I thought it was the House,” the Doctor says wildly, not understanding. Where is Susan? _Where is her granddaughter?_

But the Grand Master only shakes her head once more.

Dizzy, the Doctor staggers across to a nearby rock, sitting down heavily. Time swirls around here – remnants of a timeline reversed. It’s 789 AD. The Autons disguised as Romans were supposed to find it in the year 108. It’s all…wiped clean. Gone. But the Doctor was directly involved, so she can sense it – almost _see_ the ghosts of Daleks, Judoon, Cybermen and more, all of them turned to stone.

Using the time she has until the Pandorica opens, the Doctor redesigns her bond-centre. This far from everything and everyone, she can sort it properly – reworking her links with the House further back into her mind, until they’re beside her TARDIS in the depths, stabilised. Her children are grouped together in clusters, according to strength; she debates over whether working the weaker links towards stronger foundations, until feeling how they interact with each other.

 _They know each other,_ the Doctor realises, calmer than she’s ever been when thinking of her young ones. _They’re comfortable with each other._

She groups them in scales, powerful bonds mingling with the fragile and offering support along the way, rather than just as the Doctor does, at the root. The Doctor will have to check over their own bond-centres, one by one – she doesn’t trust anyone else in her own Chapter to care for them like she can.

All the while, Susan stays out of reach.

The Doctor opens her eyes when the Pandorica unlocks. Missy, who had meandered over to a nearby wall, seems suspiciously bored until the sound echoes through the Underhenge.

The Grand Master looks terrified, which is unusual to the Doctor, who is used to high-ranking Time Lords being stone-faced and untouchable. Now…the lauded Grand Master of Prydon Chapter looks scared. The Doctor stands tall, watching the doors open to reveal the inside of her prison.

“I-” the Time Lord breathes, “I don’t want to.”

“Get in,” the Doctor orders. Her voice holds zero emotion, but she feels her exhaustion pouring out of her. Surely, it’s visible. Surely. Her cousin climbs inside and sits, the clamps locking around her wrist automatically.

“Quences was right,” says the Grand Master; says _Maljamin_. Her eyes are wide and pleading, even as she straightens her shoulders. “Doctor, if- if you ever see him, ever again…tell him he was right. Our hopes and dreams did prevail, in the end.”

Part of the Doctor wants to ask what she means, but her respect for Quences holds her back; she only nods, before raising her sonic screwdriver. Maljamin closes her eyes and then the doors close with a sense of finality.

And it is over.

* * *

“How many people know of this place, Doctor?”

Missy stands beside her outside of the TARDIS doors, thumb circling that broach of hers. The Doctor doesn’t know who the silhouette is supposed to be – she’s never asked. When it comes to the Master, asking always comes with a price. Not even Scotsman was curious enough to risk it.

“Me. The Ponds. Maljamin, obviously, maybe some other Time Lords, depending on how she found out – you. Clara, maybe.”

“Oh, that woman.” Missy scowls. “I’ll rip her pretty little head off for that trick of hers. Memory wipes are below the belt.”

“It was her or me.”

“Should have been her,” says Missy, clearly holding some sort of grudge. She looks the Doctor in the eye. “What I’m asking, Doctor, is if this place is safe.”

The Doctor fiddles with her screwdriver. “Not forever. Earth eventually crumbles – an excavation of Stonehenge might be in the works, somewhere in the twenty-ninth century.”

“We need to move it.”

“Later – I need to find Susan.”

Missy rubs the bridge of her nose. “Susan. I assume you’re referring to that lovely granddaughter of yours, whom I locked in my House.”

You could hear a pin drop.

Then, Missy is gasping, holding her cheek upon which the Doctor has dealt a vicious slap. “What the bloody hell, Theta? She’s safe and sound! You never mentioned her before now!”

 _Didn’t I?_ The Doctor asks herself, dismissing the thought instantly. She savagely points a finger at her. “The moment we met again, you should have said something! I am up to _here_ in kidnapped children and you’re telling me _you_ _locked my granddaughter in the House of Oakdown?_ ”

“Stars, you bottle things up, don’t you?” Missy mumbles. She rubs at her cheek, grumbling quietly as they make their way back to the TARDIS. The Doctor can’t believe it! Except she can, because Susan spent her childhood popping in and out of House Oakdown, just like the Doctor. And worse, the Doctor’s anger is different this time and it’s the cleansing sort – a righteous pique and fury that washes away like sand on skin under a tap, the moment the Doctor starts to calm.

Susan is safe.

At the TARDIS console when they enter, the Doctor can see Tomomi, her Summer Solonian child – he’s a basic Humanoid boy with red hair and an abundance of freckles, who seems to be able to use his inherit ability to pass through solid matter, if the squeak and subsequent drop through the floor upon seeing them means anything.

“Come upstairs,” the Doctor raises her voice so he can hear, uncomfortable at his reaction. Is he afraid of her? She breathes in deeply, motioning for Missy to join her at the controls.

Her friend briefly puts a hand on her wrist. For a moment, the Doctor uses the contact as a single moment to breathe – but then she gives up and practically lunges for Missy, arms wrapping around her shoulders.

“Oh, my Doctor,” Missy croons, holding her in return. Tears run down the Doctor’s cheeks and she buries her face in Missy’s shoulder, not wanting anyone else to see. Missy’s hand runs through her hair, sweet murmurs under her breath meant to soothe and comfort.

They’re both so old.

Eventually, the Doctor cleans her face and places a chaste kiss on Missy’s lips in thanks. The other Time Lord hums, smiling, then grasps her collar; their lips smash together and it is rougher than before, a promise from Missy just as tangible as the renewed link in their minds.

“Let’s return home, now, Doctor,” she purrs. Bright eyes lock with the Doctor’s, before she pats her cheek. “Time to go.”

As Missy slips away, the Doctor watches her go fondly, rolling her eyes as they split the six piloting positions in half. Together, they drive her TARDIS back to the plateau upon which both Innocet’s House and the House of Oakdown are located and they do it in style.

“One tic, dearie. I’ll return your wayward granddaughter.” Missy winks at her before slipping outside. The Doctor is left waiting, ears picking up the faint sounds of whispers and children’s feet.

“Old Girl,” she whispers, trying to catch her TARDIS’ attention without alerting anyone else. “Lead them here, for me – and don’t let them see the Zero Room!”

Her own words remind her of the truth, washing away some of the glory of her reunion with Missy. It had been hard enough smuggling the stiff bodies of their siblings that died within Innocet’s House into the TARDIS, harder still to step inside the Zero Room to do so. Sixteen children live and seventeen are dead, not including the boy Nawab from the Arena or Boy Song’s elder sister.

_I have to give him his name._

The Doctor flips a switch on her TARDIS, turning on the priority four safety levels – the TARDIS will keep her kids from danger, but priority four will keep them close. She closes her eyes, remembering the first face that this body saw, after falling from the sky and crashing through the roof of a train; Grace took such good care of her and the Doctor wishes she had known her better.

_I’m sure Graham won’t mind. Grace might have thought it would be an honour._

“Grace Song,” she tries out loud for the first time. Hopefully her son will like it. “Grace.”

Her TARDIS rumbles, warmth projected through her mind. The Doctor smiles at her approval.

“Yeah, thought you’d like that. He’s technically your grandson, too – all that ‘child of the Tardis’ blether,” she says, running a fond hand over the console. The Doctor hears Tomomi approaching again from behind, his curiosity rampant and emanating throughout the room.

“Who are you talking to, Wise One?”

“Call me Doctor,” she says, turning her head to look at him. Tomomi is what she wanted to be as a child – all ginger, a carrot-top. He’s bony, with a pointy chin and his clothes are red, basic garb for the average Gallifreyan child of Prydon Chapter; they don’t suit him at all. “I was talking to my Tardis, the ship we’re on. She’s alive, so I talk to her. She’s my longest companion and my oldest friend.”

Tomomi comes closer, edging forwards until he’s touching the TARDIS controls – not doing anything, just…touching. “Can she feel this?”

“I don’t know if she feels it like you or I,” the Doctor says, crouching down low so she’s looking up at him. “But she can sense everything in here. It’s _her_ , all of it. She registers every breath you take, feels your weight under your shoes-”

Tomomi jumps into the air, looking down, “Can she feel me when I’m in the air?”

“Yep! This whole dimension is just _her._ She knows every atom that exists inside – cool, right?” The Doctor grins, getting a grin back. The TARDIS alerts her a second before the rest of her children come running through as a pack, clearly playing chasies again. Upon seeing her, some make noises, stopping and tripping up others, until quite suddenly, there’s a floor full of fallen children, some already sniffling and crying from cuts and bruises.

Jumping to action, the Doctor exclaims, “Is everyone okay? Any broken bones? Lots of bleeding?”

She kneels amongst the children, checking over knees and elbows, along with one bleeding nose; Alexis, the Human hybrid, pulls a tissue out of her pocket for that one.

“Good girl,” the Doctor praises, catching the happy look on her face at the encouragement. The Doctor helps Fumiko straighten some of her spines, realising belatedly that she’s touching her children for the first time and that really…it doesn’t matter. They’re here. They’re her responsibility.

She murmurs, “ _Hello_ ” and takes a box of 20th Century plasters out of her pocket, asking each of them their allergens before sticking them on cuts and grazes. By the end of it all, she’s huddled with them on the ground, rambling on about capillaries and blood vessels as she helps Cen, a non-binary Trion hybrid with holding their bloody nose.

The doors to the TARDIS open later, as she’s explaining the mechanics of clotting to an avid group of listeners. They admit Susan first and then Missy. The Doctor stalls, dragging out the second syllable of a random word that she’s already forgotten the ending to.

“Oh,” Susan blinks at the sight of them, shocked. “Grandfather, this is…your brood.”

“Uh, yes,” the Doctor replies, nervous and blinking, suddenly. But Holly is leaning into her side and Kera kneeling at her back, elbows resting on her shoulders. She can’t move. “This is them. All of them – except Jenny, obviously.”

“Obviously,” repeats Susan. She comes forwards, leaving Missy to lean against the closed doors. Susan’s eyes flicker from face to face, before she puts a hand to her chest. “Hello, younglings. My name is Susan Campbell, or Susan Foreman. I’m the Doctor’s granddaughter, from his first family here, on Gallifrey. I’m very sorry for what you all went through at the hands of the Cousin.”

The Doctor passes her hand comfortingly over the head of Roma, a Tivolian boy with small features on a large face and pointed ears. He shudders briefly, but she can feel that stubbornness he projects, his mind a steel trap compared to his cowardly brethren.

“How about I introduce you all?” The Doctor asks, before getting right into it. She gestures to Roma first. “This is Roma, from Tivoli. Roma, say hello to your niece.”

Roma waves silently at Susan.

“That’s nice of you. Waving’s a great way to communicate when you can’t speak,” the Doctor comments, far from disapproving at his silence. She gestures to Kera at her back, next. “This is Kera of Erador.”

“Hello!”

Susan smiles at her. “Hello, Kera.”

“Then there’s Holly, here-” the Doctor pats his afro, then gestures across the group to Josefa “-and Josefa, Zygons from Earth.”

“Nice to meet you, Susan,” chirps Josefa, waving excitedly, before introducing Emily. “This is Emily!” Emily waves uncertainly, clearly scared as to Susan’s reaction.

Susan, however, takes her species in stride. “It’s lovely to meet you both, Josefa, Emily.”

Tomomi is next. He speaks quietly, telling Susan his name and the planet he’s from – Solos. Likewise, Fumiko waves furiously.

“I’m a Vinvocci! I’m not a cactus – Alexis accidentally called me a cactus, but that’s a bad word!”

“Is it really?” Susan questions, getting a furious nod.

“My name’s Fumiko.” Fumiko states, before gesturing to Ryoko, her smaller, crimson counterpart. “This is Ryoko, she’s just a Zocci. We’re from sister-planets!”

“Lovely to meet you, Ryoko.”

“I am of similar mind, older niece Susan,” says Ryoko, speech patterns different enough to be noticeable. Beside her, the next grunts a greeting.

“My designation is Aday Golornius, Warrior of the Martian Empire,” says Aday. The Doctor happily watches the young Ice Warrior introduce herself – she’s almost pure Martian on the outside, scaled pale green with orange eyes, that most likely see heat signatures rather than any sort of colour-spectrum. Though, the fact that she already _is_ an Ice Warrior is vaguely concerning.

 _I’ll have to keep an eye on her,_ the Doctor thinks, before taking away Cen’s blue-streaked tissue. “This is Cen, a Trion – they had a little accident. Nothing needing to be reset, luckily.”

“And I’m Alexis!” Alexis exclaims, waving joyfully. “Are you really our auntie?”

“You’re _my_ auntie,” Susan corrects gently. Her smile is infectious. “I’m your niece!”

From beside Alexis, Dekon buzzes quietly, introducing himself. The TARDIS translation circuits work overtime, a buzz still present as his voice reaches them. “Name of mine: Dekon. Planet of mine: Menoptra.”

“I am Robert Aden Surannschotius,” then says Robert Aden, who the Doctor will most likely attempt to nickname Rob – he looks like a Rob. Seriously, just…all blonde hair and attitude, Rob. His chest puffs up imperiously. “I belong of the Great Thal Republic!

“And I,” says Zidon, who glares mutinously at Robert. The two boys obviously don’t get along, which catches her attention.

“Hey,” the Doctor says in a warning tone. “No fighting. Not on the Tardis. If you want to argue, you can go to your rooms.”

“What rooms?” Zidon scoffs, the Doctor raising her eyebrow. “I wish to return home to my clan. I have a room to myself there. I don’t even have to share with the slaves, like my brothers-”

The Doctor hisses sharply, immensely disliking that sentence. Zidon goes quiet.

“…slavery is bad,” Alexis says, frowning at him.

“The Kaleds can’t do much more than peons work.” Rob rolls his eyes.

“Quiet, the both of you,” the Doctor snaps. It takes a moment for the tension to rescind. “Did I miss anyone?”

“Just me.”

The Doctor turns her gaze on River’s son. He looks fragile, wearing white scrubs and old bandages around his arms. The Doctor dislodges Kera and Holly so she can reach out to him, gently bringing him closer. He crawls halfway into her lap in a trained manner that makes her flinch, waiting patiently as the Doctor undoes his bandages. Underneath are healed-over scabs from old cannulas and IV lines.

“I had a chat with your mum, when I found out about you,” she tells him, noting the same curly blonde hair as her wife and the same brown eyes as…as the one Grace Holloway met. The romantic one, who defeated the Master with the weird yellow eyes.

The Doctor realises _then_ , the truth crashing through her like thunder. The hospital took bloods from her pre-regeneration body. It wouldn’t be unthinkable that Kovarian stole the samples of her DNA from then and there. The Doctor knows from experience that her DNA can be funny sometimes and her son having eyes from a regeneration not yet formed isn’t an irregularity, not to her. And to think, if Grace Holloway hadn’t attempted to save her…

_Hm. Another old friend can be immortalised by name, today._

Her son asks her, “You know my mother? Madam Kovarian said she died.”

“She did – but her consciousness is saved, alive in a library from the fifty-first century. I talked to her. She told me to give you a proper name and to bring you and the rest of this lot-” she briefly looks around at her children, who hang onto her every word “-to visit. I loved her. I loved her so much, that I married her over five hundred times throughout time and space.”

“I have a name,” he says, brow furrowing.

“No, you don’t,” the Doctor disagrees, thinking he looks _so_ much like Rory. “Being called _boy_ isn’t right. It’s not a name.”

“Some of them called me Mr Song,” her son fights her, rubbing at his arms. The Doctor piles up the bandages beside her.

“Oh, you’re a Song, alright – or a Pond, or a Williams. Your parents used to travel with me. Your mother’s history is complicated and I’ll tell you _every_ detail, one day. But…for now, your mum,” she taps his nose, “told me to name you. Hello, Grace. You’re named after two good women. One was a nurse and the other was a doctor.”

“Grace.” He repeats his new name, frowning. “Grace Song?”

“If you want. Funny story, about how your mother got her last name. It’s all kind of backwards,” the Doctor smiles, before hearing Missy’s faint cough. She looks behind Susan to her old enemy. “What?”

“Frankly, Doctor, I’m upset you’re not naming your child after _me_ – two measly Humans can’t be worth _centuries_ of friendship!” she replies dramatically, hand to her brow before she slinks forwards, arm wrapping around Susan’s lower back. The Doctor thinks for a moment that all is well, that it’s a simple joke. But the way Missy looks over her brood is worrying – the old, burning hurt in her eyes causing the Doctor concern.

“Are you alright?” She asks quietly. Missy’s eyes meet hers briefly. The Doctor sees her thinking, then hears a thought, projected.

_You need to remember something, Doctor. The Curse of Pythia is broken._

_The Curse of Pythia?_ The Doctor frowns, wondering why she’s bringing that old thing up. _Why are you reminding me about that?_

Missy smiles faintly in dark amusement. _You’re the one who told me, Doctor. I wonder, has it happened for you, yet?_

“Has what happened?” The Doctor asks aloud, completely confused.

Missy’s smile is completely fake as she replies.

“Nothing.”

She curls her arm tighter around Susan’s waist, hugging her from the side and lying straight to the Doctor’s face.

“Nothing at all.”


	9. Chapter Eight

Missy leaves shortly after that, dancing around the Doctor’s insistences and Susan’s queries. Even her children can tell that Missy is telling lies.

With the younger generations scattered throughout the console room, the Doctor makes a list aloud, trying to sort out options and explain what has happened in a way that doesn’t require much more explanation. She’ll repeat the list later, in a recap for her fam, but for now…

Distraction time.

“First, I have to sort out this House nonsense,” she says, flipping a lever and continuously walking around the console. “There’s two. That shouldn’t have happened. I think I can combine them, but that’ll take some maths I haven’t done yet – I should get the rest of the Chapterhouse on it. Which reminds me!”

The Doctor exclaims, “The Cousin is the Grand Master of Prydon House! Has been for thousands of years! Time travel doesn’t get rounder than that. Events happened because they already happened to them. Maljamin captured you all and then he got sent back to the early days, so he knew it had already happened when it happened again. Next chore: I need to get Prydon Court to choose a new Grand Master. _Ugh._ ”

Crouching in front of the nearest child, which happens to be Emily, the Doctor sits on her haunches, talking directly at her.

“But they’ll probably vote for me. I really don’t want that responsibility. Third thing to do: name a regent. Problem with that, though – I don’t trust most people on Gallifrey right now.” _And the people I do trust, I want to rescue from the fate the Master has in store for them._

In linear time, there’s only two hundred and eighty-three years until the Master destroys everything.

The Doctor stares fiercely at Emily, their eyes locked. “I have to decide the political future of an entire planet. My planet. Earth is my home, but Gallifrey is my responsibility. Next thing on the list: use my powers for evil to get all of you in front of the Untempered Schism.”

“Is that wise?” Susan interjects. “The mental strength required…”

“Next-next thing: decide whether that’s a good idea or not,” the Doctor mutters, before continuing that point, “and decide whether, should that happen, if you should attend the Time Lord Academy or become free-range Time Lords in here, growing up in the Tardis with me for a mentor.”

Faintly, she hears Susan say the word _preposterous,_ but clearly, Susan has seen enough of the new her to accept that she’s different. That she has the capacity to do these things and succeed. _I’m no longer a young man on a jaunt with his granddaughter – I’m one of the most powerful beings in the universe, if I’m being honest with myself._

The Doctor chuckles then. _Honest with myself. Ha._

Standing, she starts pacing again, circling past Susan and back towards the console. “Then there’s all of you again to think about. You have lives, families – but you’re my children and your lifespans aren’t the same. Not only that, but the Time Lords have locked your timelines. It’s what they do, in these types of investigations. Means you can’t go back, because you were never recorded to have gone back. My people are stupid, sometimes. Checking your timelines, when we’re _linear._ ” The Doctor shakes her head. “So stupid…but it prevents tampering. Non-interference clauses, so rubbish. Awful things. Immutable things.”

“We cannot return to our homes?” Rob startles, wide-eyed. “But I want my clan!”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” the Doctor sighs, slowing to a halt. She looks none of them in the eye. “The moment you were taken, the space you took in those times and places…any potential has been locked away. Your parents, your families, your loved ones – you can’t go back. Any of you.”

“But I want to!” Cries Rob, a ring-leader amongst them. He stands defiantly, trying to be hard and demanding – but his cyan eyes are glistening with tears. “Take me back!”

“I can’t. I’m sorry,” the Doctor says to him, but Rob rushes forwards to the console, pressing buttons and jamming levers. The Doctor lets him. The security clearance she’s invoked will stop the controls from reacting to anyone but herself and other authorised users, like River Song or Clara Oswald. Rob tries, but ultimately, his efforts are for naught and he sobs like a baby.

“I want my clan! I want them! Take me back, Warrior, take me back!”

Saying nothing, the Doctor steps forwards, her arms slipping under his armpits. She lifts him up and settles him like a young child against her shoulder, letting him cry without shame. The Doctor cracks open her bond with him. It’s just past mediocre – Thals have always had psychic potential, from living in the same galaxy as Gallifrey. Certain areas of the universe are like that, similar traits popping up in planets within range of each other. Emily’s race is proof of that. They have power over time and have since long before Gallifrey even invented time travel, but only _because_ they did so.

Time ripples backwards like that sometimes. Big disturbances like the ones Time Lords created in their inventive zeal, especially.

Coaxing Rob into some semblance of peace takes time. By the time she has him settled, her bonds are crying out in warning, the rest of her children either on the brink or in distress.

“I’m going to tell you all, right now, that I am never going to have enough hands,” the Doctor informs them clearly, putting Rob down on the steps, giving him her coat. He settles into it with gusto, pulling it around his body. The Doctor looks around, speaking low. “There are too many of you. But, I promise, I will always care. I will always love each and every one of you fairly and equally.”

“Kid are meant to go to their parents when they’re upset,” says Kera, hiccoughing, “but we can’t go to you.”

“Not all the time,” the Doctor says, “which is why it’s important to care for each other. You’re brothers, sisters and siblings. That matters. You’re bound by blood – but being bound by _choice_ makes that relationship even more precious.”

“And the Doctor’s not alone.” Susan says to them. The Doctor remembers reading a file on her life with David Campbell; she had four children of her own, all adopted except the last. She looks at the Doctor’s children now, with tears in her eyes. “I’ll be a call away. So will your other sister, Jenny. You may have met her daughter, Mazlyn.”

“Maz was our niece?” Holly questions in a croaky voice, perplexed.

“Yes,” the Doctor confirms. Standing up, she returns to the console, looking out on them all. “I’m going to fly to the House of Lungbarrow – the third one, where you were taken by the Cousin. You don’t have to leave the Tardis if you don’t want to. In fact, don’t. Stay in here, where it’s definitely safe.”

She breathes in deep.

“Trust me.”

The feelings that emanate from her children are mixed. There is trust, certainly – but there’s also fear and no small amount of hurt. They want to go home to their parents.

Instead of addressing all of that, the Doctor flies. The TARDIS moans and groans about landing inside a locked House, but the Doctor gives her permission, unlocks the House and forces her to land all in one fell swoop; and unsurprisingly, her fam are the first people through the doors when she does.

Yasmin is at the head of the group. Her eyes widen, before she schools herself visibly and moves aside to let Jenny slip forwards. The Doctor watches her daughter look over them all with barely-hidden anguish, taking the chance to reach out mentally. Jenny instinctively recognises her, latching on with barely a thought at all, though the Doctor witnesses the strange phenomena that is her daughter reaching out to her siblings. It’s _almost_ a conscious thing, but it’s mostly subconscious.

It’s strong, nonetheless.

“Hello,” Jenny says, slightly detached as she frowns, mind absorbing the information provided to her by the psychic links. The Doctor can almost see her close the doors on their bonds, like Susan has taught her. “My name is Jenny.”

Murmurs greet her. Graham clears his throat, edging past the children with Ryan and Yasmin trailing behind him as he makes his way to the console.

“Doc,” he whispers, “You gotta get out there. Those family member of yours are going mad, locked up in there.”

“I unlocked the House,” the Doctor says, deciding that merging the Houses might be the better idea to do first off. “Stay in here. Don’t let the children leave, for their own safety.”

“Will you be alright, with all of them?” Ryan asks, sounding like he's stumbled across something distasteful. “They were right rude to us, even that Celesia chick. I thought she was supposed to be the nice one.”

“Ryan,” the Doctor sighs, just…tired. “My people are a bunch of xenophobes with a superiority complex. I’m not surprised they were rude to you.”

“They were pretty forthright about their beliefs,” says Yasmin. Like Ryan, she sounds sour. The Doctor hides her grimace.

“I’ll sort it. You all stay in here – Graham and Susan are in charge!”

Jenny’s head whips around. “What about me?”

“They’re the eldest,” the Doctor states diplomatically, cruising across the room and past her eldest daughter, who splutters and lets out a sharp giggle. It makes the Doctor smile and look back, finding Jenny’s face exactly how she pictured: bright-eyed, with a wide, wide smile. She admits it aloud. “I’m so glad you lived.”

Jenny’s happiness turns to tenderness. “Me too,” she says. “I missed you, Dad.”

Flashing a smile, the Doctor exits the TARDIS, shutting the doors behind her. The Great Hall is lit brightly and the seventeen other members of her House have filtered back into the room, young Kort Kappa running into the room with another child of the House – even Owis is seated in the back of the room, in shadow.

However, some of her cousins look _particularly_ murderous.

“You locked us within!” Chovor rumbles, glaring.

The Doctor scoffs, rolling her eyes and pushing off the TARDIS doors. “Just for an hour or too. What, did you get claustrophobic?”

“Somewhat,” says Salpash, under their breath.

“Do you want to hear what happened, or not?” The Doctor questions. They listen intently as she explains Maljamin’s existence as the Grand Master. She then tells them her list of things to do.

Jobiska is the first to revolt. “Your hybrid beasts aren’t worthy of the Untempered Schism.”

“Agreed,” Farg sniffs, pushing her braids back behind her shoulders. “They should be culled, to protect our race. It’s only logical.”

“That sort of logic has no place in House Lungbarrow,” the Doctor replies, making a decision. Romana isn’t this bigoted anymore and she was a good President - the Doctor trusts her not to have these sort of awful ideas. _I’ll name her Regent of my presidency the moment I sort this lot out,_ she thinks, furious. “And you’ll have more respect for my children. One of them might be my successor, one day.”

Celesia gasps, skins greying. “Cousin, you _wouldn’t._ ”

“I would – you may be my Housekeeper, a steward of House Lungbarrow, but you are not Kithriarch and you don’t get to make those decisions,” the Doctor says to her, looking at Owis. “You’ve been particularly quiet.”

Owis purses his lips. “I have been pondering over something Innocet once said to me. It made no impact upon my younger self, but I have recalled it, since. ‘Time Lords are not restricted to Gallifreyans alone’.”

“Yes,” the Doctor points, “but that’s not what I’m on about.”

“Indeed,” Owis agrees, although he refuses her point. “However, it is far from fair. Your children cannot all become Time Lords with all the subsequent powers and abilities. It breaks every rule ever set in place. You would be following in Maljamin’s footsteps, making every child of yours a Time Lord without thought to the consequences.”

Her chest constricts. “Well, if Gallifrey is going to drop all this privilege on me, I get to use it. This is something I’m not going to change my mind on. It’s part of who I am. I’ve lived for so long – we’ll never understand each other, if it doesn’t happen. Those are my children.”

“And what of Quences?” Owis asks, “He was not a Time Lord, yet he raised you.”

The Doctor grimaces.

“Cousin Owis has a point,” DeRoosifa admits, seemingly grudgingly. The Doctor suspects that DeRoosifa is one of her few allies in the room. “Though you are correct in saying that when given such power, using it how you see fit is not such an intolerable notion.”

“Do what you will with your freaks.” Luton draws a scroll from the centre of the table, writing down on it rapidly. “I want to talk about the combining Houses. The probability of their merging is certain – this situation is not unique to House Lungbarrow. The House of Trigal once had an accident with a timeline device – the two divided Houses from each timeline merged permanently. Even upon the repair of the timelines, the Houses in both realities were forever joined, despite being duplicated across the timelines.”

“Oh, that’s good,” the Doctor blinks, not having expected the change in subject. “I’ve towed a planet with my Tardis before, so I know the logistics of that – I just need to link the House with the Tardis. The Daleks once stole twenty-seven planets.”

Luton points at her with a pen. “You need to write a book about your adventures, one day.”

The Doctor’s eyes widen and she shouts loudly. “BOOKS! Luton, I promised to link up the Matrix to the Library, that big library planet from the fifty-first century!”

Her cousin blinks at her. Luton, ever the glutton for her escapades – and oh, now she’s remembering all those little treats he snuck her as a child and how he showed her the best escape-route to the roof – immediately starts scribbling down his thoughts, disjointed words that clearly fill in whatever gaps are in his head. He doesn’t even asks why – he just tries to figure it out.

“Sometimes,” the Doctor says to herself, grinning, “I love my family.”

“Thanks,” snorts Farg. “Only sometimes. When we’re useful.”

“Well,” the Doctor starts, voice hardening, “if half of you are rude, uncultured and in need of a re-education in manners, then yes: only when you’re useful.”

Kort Kappa hesitantly asks with a stutter, “Do- do you, uh- do you mean us- uh, mean us, as well, uh- Kithriarch?”

“No, sweetie,” she says lowly. “You and your younger cousins are excused. Children are always excused. Your parents are the ones in charge of your upbringing and they’re the ones I’ll be disappointed in, if you turn out badly, after this.”

“And you call _us_ rude.” Jobiska gives her the evil eye and the Doctor sticks out her tongue. “Immature wretch. You always were a troublemaker.”

“From day one. I mean, I had a belly-button,” the Doctor reminds them, still pleasantly confused over that one, herself. Belly-buttons imply placentas, implying natural birth – an impossibility, because of the Curse of Pythia.

_The Curse of Pythia is broken._

“Oh, yeah,” she mutters, frowning. “Did anyone hear about that, by the way? I made friends with the Sisterhood of Karn. They supposedly ‘broke’ the Curse of Pythia, though I don’t see how you can ‘break’ a biological attack.”

Her cousins stare at her.

“What?”

* * *

The Doctor tells Romana. Romana also stares at her, then thanks her, breathlessly, laughing, for the Presidency back. Somehow, the Doctor is still surprised when Romana pulls her up and kisses her soundly.

After that – with Romana’s blessing – the Doctor takes her TARDIS to the Untempered Schism, making plans to leave Gallifrey once her children are changed. She won’t abandon them to the Academy. Never. Anyway, the Academy is overrated – she failed to graduate twice and she’s the _Doctor_.

“I wish I could see it,” Jenny tells her, once she’s given the adults the run-down. She looks at her siblings in a wistful manner; at some point during the Doctor’s hopping around, they’ve had a picnic organised by Graham and played half a dozen boardgames, including but not limited to Twister, Monopoly, Clue, That’s Life, Labyrinth, Sorry and Settlers of Catan.

“You never would have been able to,” the Doctor says, hypothesising how bad an idea it would be. “Even eight-year-old you was too old. It’s about fluidity of the brain and a whole crockpot of biological traits you never got to have.”

“Still,” Jenny sighs. She nudges Yasmin, smiling at her. “We make a great enough team without a Time Lord between us, right, Yaz?”

“Definitely,” Yasmin grins at her and the Doctor has an unsettling feeling, recalling they had an adventure of their own.

“What _did_ you do earlier?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Ryan elbows Yasmin’s other side. “What happened when you went out into the city? Did you go to the alien shops or something? Did you go clubbing?”

Yasmin laughs loudly. “I didn’t go clubbing! Do they even _have_ places to go out, on Gallifrey?”

“Not in the part of Arcadia I was parked,” the Doctor replies, crossing her arms. “Are you ever going to tell us?”

“Nah,” Jenny loops her arm around Yasmin’s neck, leaning into her side. They grin at each other again and really, the Doctor has obviously missed something huge – they should barely know each other, but their camaraderie is obvious. “We’ll keep that to ourselves for now, won’t we, Yaz?”

“Defo,” agrees Yazmin. The Doctor makes a wounded noise.

“Only your friends call you ‘Yaz’ – Graham! My daughter’s stealing my Yaz!”

Graham chuckles. “Well, these things happen, Doc.”

“I do hope you will tell me, Jenny,” Susan then says, getting a casual _nod_ , like Jenny actually intends to tell her. The Doctor whines.

“You had an adventure without me!”

“Yeah, we did.” Yasmin states without remorse, looking at Ryan. “You should join us, sometime. We had fun.”

“What sort of fun?” He asks.

Jenny leans towards him with a toothy smile. “The sort you can’t tell dear old Dad about.”

“This isn’t fair,” the Doctor mutters, before deciding that it is time. Skirting around her friends, she attracts the attention of her children. “Okay, everyone, line up! You’re going to hold hands and go outside with me. Everyone else stays inside-” she looks back at her friends with a slight glare for everyone, bar Susan, to whom she says in her mind, _contain them so they can regenerate safely_ “-while we go out. I won’t lie, this will be really uncomfortable, but just push through it, yeah? It’ll be over after a minute.”

When her kids are lined up, the Doctor opens the main doors to her TARDIS and leads them outside, hoping in her hearts that this is the right thing to do. That stubborn refusal to believe it’s anything but the best thing she can do for both herself and her children begins to steadily evaporate the closer the steps to the Untempered Schism.

Time. It swirls, an open gap in the fabric of reality. She sees the Vortex and she can look away, only to see it reflected back in the eyes of her children as they stand in front of it with fixed gazes, unable to look way.

Her bonds pulse. She feels their minds opening up – and Alexis, her half-Human girl, is the first to run. She stops holding hands with Dekon and turns on her heel, running back to the TARDIS and opening the doors outwards-

 _Outwards?_ The Doctor stares at the doors. _What in the name of Omega…did she really just open them **outwards?**_

The Doctor shakes away her confusion, watching the rest of her children. Fumiko walks away in almost a haze, looking back only once when she stops by the TARDIS, green skin absorbing the blue light of the Vortex. The Doctor wonders whether she'll still have spines after regenerating - she likes them. They might be an obvious sign that Fumiko is far from the average Gallifreyan, a hybrid who needs to regenerate - lest her mind burn up from the sheer power of time - but they show where she's from.

The Doctor does not want her children to forget those things.

“Father?” Zidon’s brow knits. “Father, I can see time. I see the rise of Skaro and- and the fall of the Thal Empire. Kaleks. Daleks…is that what they truly become?”

“It is strange. I do not like.” Ryoko says, backing away. She looks unsettled.

More of the Doctor’s children leave. The Doctor thinks that some are ‘inspired’ as it were, but there are a few obvious ones who run, like Alexis, along with Josefa, Tomomi and Aday. Emily worries her for a short while, especially when she runs away without a word. Kera stares and stares, until finally she says _huh,_ turning back to walk. Holly cries and Roma drags him away without speaking, mind loud and clear, at work supporting his brother. Grace runs at full pelt back to the TARDIS and doesn’t quite make it before he’s screaming his lungs out, golden fire spreading from his face, hands and feet.

The Doctor pauses in her watch to see to him, picking up his unconscious body – the same as it was before regeneration, except for the new constellation of freckles across his left jaw, only minutely changed – and delivering him to Jenny in the doorway, who heard and stood in wait.

“Your friends don’t understand. Susan will explain it to them,” is all she says, before taking him away.

Cen, Dekon and Rob take the longest.

Crouching near the edge, the Doctor doesn’t dare delve into their minds, but she keeps watch. Rob sees her after a while and the smile that grows on his face is different. The defiance she saw before has vanished, replaced by good cheer and joy.

“Can I have a hat? Not your fezzes, but like a hat from the wild west- no!” Rob’s eyes widen and he scrambles over to her, grasping as her braces. “A _Mexican_ hat! A sombrero!”

“You can have all the hats in the world,” the Doctor promises, mellow in the face of his enthusiasm. She can feel the regeneration energy under his skin and it comes too soon to push him away, bursting once, for less two seconds. After, his hair is curlier than before and a little longer – his bright cyan eyes turned to ocean green. Hybrids can’t be Time Lords, not truly. Whatever Thal part of him he had before, it’s all burned away, now. That’s what all her children will do, when they regenerate. Only surface aesthetical differences will remain.

In a fit of love, she reaches up to kiss his cheek, murmuring, “Go wait in the Tardis. Help your siblings out.”

“Definitely!” Rob runs towards the TARDIS, practically skipping. The Doctor swallows deeply, the personality change jarring. She looks back to find Dekon looking her way, limbs twitching. He uses his wings to fly away when he catches her gaze.

Only Cen is left and Cen steps closer, enthralled by the Vortex. They sit on the gravelly ground, legs crossing beneath them.

“Cen?”

“…it’s beautiful,” they say. A turn of a head. A glance at the Doctor. “What do you see, when you look?”

“Time. The raw power of space-time. I see universes and the infinite possibilities of single moments.”

Cen rests their head on their hands. Contemplative is the term the Doctor would use to describe their expression.

“I think I want to be a boy, this time around,” says Cen. Knowing the traditions of Trion’s, the Doctor accepts that, making the executive decision to end this. Cen has to have limits. She moves forwards, holding out her hand to him. It takes a single moment of resistance for him to realise denying her won’t work and he takes her hand, letting her pull him to his feet.

“Time to go.”


	10. Epilogue

“I think it’s time.”

Graham tucks his hands into his pockets, looking out onto the Welsh sea. Leaning on the bars beside him, the Doctor shrugs.

“It doesn’t have to be. You can always come back.”

“Oh,” Graham looks her way with a smile, “I will, promise. But you’ve got responsibilities, now and I won’t keep them from you. Yaz and Ryan will take a break of their own, Yaz’ll probably go on adventures with your Jen from time to time-”

“I can’t believe Susan encouraged her to steal a Tardis, honestly _-_ ”

“-and I’ll be happy visiting on the regular,” he finishes. Graham briefly takes out a hand to point at her, though returns it quickly to his pocket when the cold wind picks up. “You _will_ visit. We’ll go on some adventures, you and me, kids at our side. On-call babysitter, that’s me. Even Bumblebee.”

“His name’s Dekon and he’s more a wasp, than a bee, Graham,” the Doctor says exasperatedly. Graham smiles. It’s a reoccurring joke that Dekon enjoys hearing. The Doctor looks his way, quiet as she asks, “But you’re going. The fam’s breaking up.”

“We’re not a band, Doc,” Graham says gently. “We’re family. Family sticks together. I have no doubt in my heart that Susan and Jenny will go off together, nicking some of the kids and, on occasion, Yaz and Ryan; and I’m sure that when they’re not doing that, we’ll either be in Sheffield or with you, travelling through time and space.”

The Doctor smiles. “Thanks, Graham.”

“You’re welcome,” he sniffs, looking back out onto the beach. The kids look like they belong to a school group, especially in the matching jumpers the Doctor forced on them all – apparently, they’ve got some kind of perception filter in them. The most important part about the kids wearing them though, is so that they can go out into the 21st Century without Humans looking at their more alien siblings funny.

 _There’d be more screaming if they could see Dekon,_ Graham thinks with a wince. Child-sized, bipedal wasps in blue knit jumpers _really_ don’t blend in right, in this time period.

A faint, low chime in the distance rings out. “That’s the Tardis,” the Doctor says, “fully recharged. Did I tell you about the Rift? I did tell you about the Rift, I think.”

“Yeah, yeah – fuelling spot for the Tardis,” Graham nods along, watching how, at the noise, the kids all start heading back towards the stairs, leading from the sand to the pier. “Where do you think you’ll go, next?”

“I’ve got a plan,” the Doctor tells him, “for getting them trained up in school things and all that. Important things. I got a day booked with some cat doctors, in the future, to get them checked out.”

“Cat doctors,” Graham muses, guiltily recalling one of the feline faces of the Doctor’s deceased children. “Doctor,” he starts, looking directly at her, “Will you ever have a funeral for them?”

The Doctor looks away, clutching the ends of her rainbow scarf. “Yeah. I will – but not yet. When the kids are older. When we’re ready. I’ll invite you and the others after. Going to have to get Jenny involved, for Mazlyn, anyway – she might not like what I have planned.”

“I’m sure she’ll be fine with it.” Graham comforts her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You focus on those kids of yours, the living ones. There’s something in mourning your lost loved ones, but the living are even more important, Doc.”

“Thanks, Graham,” she repeats quietly, a smile blooming on her face as Josefa runs into her legs. She hauls her up for a moment, kissing her cheek before depositing her back down onto the ground. “Hey! Did you have fun at the beach? I _love_ the beach!”

“Loads of fun!” Josefa beams, before Roma butts in.

“I want to go see Mother! Please-please-please-please-please-please-”

The Doctor gasps, interrupting his pleading. “River _always_ loves to see you! What are you waiting for? Get back to the Tardis and fire her up for me – we’ll go drop Graham back home to Sheffield, then go link up to the Library!”

“Can’t we go _now?_ ” Roma pouts, but the Doctor pokes his head.

“Don’t get that face on, c’mon, you _know_ we have to take care of our Graham.”

“Yeah!” Graham adds, “I’m your Graham! Take me home before visiting your mother, you young hooligans!”

Josefa and Kera giggle with each other and Graham eagerly takes Alexis’ hand when she offers it, pressing a short kiss to the back of it.

“Love you,” she says sweetly.

“Aw, darling,” Graham draws her against his side as they walk towards the TARDIS, squeezing her around the shoulders. “I love you, too, I love you all.”

The Doctor glances his way, “Not as much as me.”

“Of course, not,” Graham doesn’t refute it, happy with the love he’s receiving. “But I’m their Graham. They only get one Graham.”

“That they do.” The Doctor agrees, casually pulling their resident monkey, Kera herself, up onto her back. “That, they definitely do.”

* * *

The Kharii bows low. “You will be recorded in our histories as the Travellers. Your edicts of hope and community shall be cherished.”

“Good,” Yasmin nods firmly, before Jenny wiggles her fingers in a facsimile of a wave. The Kharii looks vaguely perplexed, copying the motion with three fingers as the Messali woman shuts the doors to their TARDIS. Jenny smiles and Yasmin, yet again, wonders whether ‘Messali’ is the right word to describe someone from the planet of Messaline.

“That was a good adventure. A civilisation saved! The bad guy locked in prison…”

“And you both managing to find your way back to the Tardis in one piece,” finishes Susan, from her place by the console. Yasmin and Jenny drift over to join her as the Time Lord eyes them up. “You should take those cloaks off. Even the Tardis might get confused.”

“We look cool.” Yasmin refutes.

“You look like kaleidoscopes,” she scoffs.

“Fine,” says Jenny, making peace. She takes off her glittering coat and Yasmin feels a little dizzy at the sight, light reflecting off it like a disco ball, but multicoloured. You can’t really see it, when you’re wearing them. She takes off her own, passing it to Jenny, who stuffs them under the console, to Susan’s dislike.

“Stop doing that. We will trip and break our necks if anything falls out.”

“Nah,” disagrees Jenny. She leans on the console, swinging side to side, before popping them into the Vortex – Yasmin belatedly taking up her quarter of the controls to finish the sequence. “Where should we go next? How about that crystal mountain, in the forty-ninth century? Uley from New-New Jericho said it was a beautiful holiday destination!”

Yasmin offers, “How about one of us picks time, then we set the randomiser?”

“A compromise. I approve,” hums Susan, using her half of the console to set the particulars. Unlike Jenny and Yasmin, Susan actually knows how to drive a TARDIS – Jenny and Yaz have been learning on the fly, with some help from the manual.

Curious, Yasmin takes said manual, flipping to the index. “How _does_ the randomiser work? Does it just… _fling_ us, like a catapult?” She finds the right page, reading up as Jenny cranes her neck to see. Yaz knows that to Jenny, the language she sees isn’t English – like with spoken languages, the TARDIS translates written words, too.

“Huh.” Jenny makes a noise, surprised. “The Tardis decides.”

“Makes sense. Each Tardis, they’re living beings, aren’t they?” Yasmin looks to the centre of their TARDIS’ console, all white with magenta accents and dials. It reminds Yasmin of the boys at school, when she was a kid and they played football in their red uniforms. “You want to take us some place? It’s got to be amazing, though. Think you can do that, for us?”

The TARDIS whirrs, before a gong sounds through the room and the engines start to run, shaking them out of their complacency. Susan startles, a shocked laugh escaping her throat as she helps the TARDIS take them somewhere else in the universe.

“Yasmin, the lever-”

“Got it!” Yaz calls out, keeping the dial by her left even and stopping it from getting too high. Jenny yells for joy, looking Yasmin’s way as they fly through time and space.

“Best idea you’ve had in weeks!”

“ _Thanks!_ ” Yasmin laughs, glad to be on equal footing with her fellow travellers for once. It’s part of why she likes it so much. Here, she’s Yaz with awesome eureka moments, with Jenny the hyperactive explorer and Susan, who always knows less than her adult friend façade would have you presume; Yasmin even catches her looking at the TARDIS manual, sometimes, like she’s rereading the facts she and Jenny have just spouted in their attempts to catch up with her formal training.

And it’s not to say that she doesn’t miss Ryan, Graham and the Doctor – because she does, she really, really does sometimes. Jenny will smile and grin at something, then turn that all upside down if they discover a wrong in the world, just like the Doctor – and Susan isn’t a leader, for all her age and majesty. The lack makes her thinks of the Doctor’s bossy ways, keeping them as safe as she can, during their travels.

The dynamic here on this TARDIS is different. They’re younger – less knowledgeable and less travelled. Sometimes, Yasmin just wants to go visit historical figures and places without having Susan say, “Grandfather has already visited. We can’t.”

To be fair – it happens quite a lot.

She misses Graham’s tea, too. He makes a good cuppa. Ryan’s always that link to home, as well, a friend her own age and a reminder that this life isn’t forever; although, Susan is better at bringing her back to Sheffield to the exact time and place she asks for. Yaz still goes home to her mum and her dad, to Sonya who always seems to have been in her room when Yaz has been off-planet and her job.

Most of all, though, she misses the Doctor. She sees her everywhere, in Jenny most of all, but sometimes in Susan, too – they’ve both lived longer than the average Human and seen things Yasmin will never understand. The look in Susan’s eyes is familiar and it makes her ache in sympathy. Yasmin doesn’t see that in Jenny, _ever_ , even though she knows that Jenny lost her daughter, too.

“You’re thinking about the Doctor again,” says Susan, watching Yasmin in curiosity as they land. “What prompted your thoughts this time?”

Yasmin blinks those thoughts away. “Nothing.”

“Nothing,” Susan repeats, clearly not believing her. For a second, it’s just them – Susan and Yasmin. They stare at each other. But then, Susan inclines her head and looks away, like she knows the truth about what Yasmin isn’t saying and won’t tell.

Like it should be kept secret.

Faintly puzzled – not sure what’s so intriguing to Susan about Yasmin thinking about the Doctor – Yasmin keeps an eye on her, while Jenny looks from them both in amusement to the monitor, describing their newest destination with fervour.

“The planet of Aiich-Dellon! A tropical paradise, with cities built in craters from the fallen chunks of their exploded moon – excellent! The Tardis says that today is a festival,” Jenny waggles her eyebrows, “and to dress appropriately.”

“Dress as what?” Yaz asks, feeling a faint, familiar thrill in her stomach. “Is it the party kind of festival? What do we wear?”

Jenny waggles her eyebrows again, then turns the monitor around for her to see. Yasmin stares, then bursts out laughing.

“Susan’s going to _hate_ this.”

“Why will I hate this?” Susan questions, suspicious. She walks around the console, joining them in front of the monitor – finally able to see the bikini, shift and painted animal masks that has the two younger women giggling. The festival celebrates the body – to get fairly saucy after dark. Susan clears her throat nervously. “Ah. Maybe we should-”

“-definitely get dressed into our best swimwear?” Jenny presses, taking her hand and dragging her towards the wardrobe. Susan fights her the whole way, but she doesn’t drag her feet, knowing perfectly well that Jenny will lift her in a fireman’s carry if she has to. “Come on! Yaz – how much do you bet I can get her thong? You give me permission to kick Izzy Flint’s arse if I win.”

“You’re on,” says Yasmin, wishing she had popcorn. This will be hilarious and Yasmin has no doubt that Jenny’s going to win the bet; she also has the petty need to see Izzy getting her arse kicked. Sue her – Izzy’s awful.

But Susan’s expression is priceless.

“A _thong?_ ”

* * *

The Doctor’s TARDIS sits on the street, neatly wedged between a car and a stray green bin. The blue box is a beacon and from her distant spot at the end of the road, Bobbie can see a red-faced teenage girl exit the house beside it and walk over, barely pushing the door open at all to get inside.

But it fascinates Bobbie that when she says red, she _means_ red. That teen was bright crimson under those dark trousers and her blue jumper needed to clash, but didn’t, somehow. She was just _so_ _pretty._

Looking at her notebook, Bobbie swirls her pencil, not sure whether or not to cross out _Graham O’Brien_ from the list of companions the Doctor supposedly has. Despite how much Bobbie wants to stare at her, a red alien girl shouldn’t live in his house.

“ _Ems! You forgot your bag!_ ” The words come a faint call. From the house, a dark-skinned man appears, holding a pale grey backpack. He waits patiently for a moment, calling out, “ _Ems!_ ” twice more.

Bobbie slowly gets closer, clutching her notepad. She recognises his face: Ryan Sinclair. Bobbie has a backpack like the one he’s holding, except hers is half-empty, with only one set of spare clothes, a water bottle, her pencil case, diary and a sandwich wrapper – tuna mayonnaise. She got it in a WHSmith’s.

The TARDIS opens again, the red teenager, ‘Ems’, popping her head out, her long braids – which despite being dark, hold tints of the same crimson as her skin – falling over her shoulder near to the ground.

 _So pretty,_ Bobbie thinks, wanting to stare forever at her.

“Sorry, Uncle Ry. Throw it?” Ems pouts at him.

Ryan Sinclair raises an eyebrow. “You want _me_ to throw something?”

“You’re good at throwing!” Ems claims, before her head abruptly turns – her eyes falling on Bobbie. She frowns deep, revealing her eyes to be red as well. “Who are you?”

“Uh,” Bobbie says intelligently, looking to Ryan Sinclair. He’s not that old. Twenty-five, maybe? Ems could be fifteen, at the most. “Is the Doctor here?”

“She’s inside the Tardis,” Ryan tells her, frowning. “Who are you? Where are your parents?”

“You’re…strange,” says Ems.

“I’m-”

“Emily Foreman, don’t you call little kids strange!” chastises Ryan, interrupting Bobbie’s reply. “You’re bright red – you can’t talk about strange.”

“ _Ryan,_ ” Emily hisses, glaring at him and looking back and forth between him and Bobbie, who realises what she’s on about.

“Oh, I can see you. Your perception filter doesn’t really work on my sort,” says Bobbie, before adding on, “-or at least, that’s what my dad said.”

Ryan looks at her funny. “You Australian?”

“Yeah, why? Are you bothered by it?” Bobbie holds her notepad to her chest, faintly harried by his questions. “I grew up there. I need to talk to the Doctor.”

“Why?” Emily questions her, but her tone has changed – she sounds older, more responsible. She’s digging for information.

Bobbie draws in a deep breath, feeling really young right now. “I’ve been trying to find her. My dad had these files on her – on her current companions. Yasmin Khan, Ryan Sinclair and Graham O’Brien. I flew from Sydney to London, then took a bus to Sheffield and-”

“Woah! Hold up,” Ryan comes down the steps from his front door, concern written all over his face. “You came all the way from Australia to find the Doctor? If you had our addresses – which is kind of weird, by the way – then why not phone?”

She shifts, weighing up her options. “I had to come in person,” she tells him, edging around the truth. “Where is she?”

Ryan and Emily exchange a _look_ , before he steps around the wall closing in the property, holding out his hand to her. Bobbie takes it immediately, shaking slightly. He looks at her solemnly.

“We’ll take you to the Doctor. She’s not far,” says Ryan. “But you have to tell her everything. Kids shouldn’t be flying halfway across the world like you’ve done. What even happened? Where’s your dad?”

“I thought she’d be able to tell me.” Bobbie squeezes his hand, looking to the TARDIS. Emily blocks the way for a moment, then she reaches out – taking her backpack from Ryan and turning inwards, letting Bobbie see inside.

 _It’s so…warm,_ she thinks, mute as Ryan leads her inside. The lights are orange and blue, crystal pillars encasing the TARDIS’ console. There, at the controls, stands her – the Doctor. She’s got bobby pins in her mouth and her hands stuck in the pale blonde hair of a teenage boy holding a sombrero.

“-two more, then we’re done,” she says, taking another pin from the boy’s hair and sticking it between her lips. The boy winces as she tugs out the last, making a handful of bobby pins to pass to him. The boy shakes out his hair, all wavy now, then puts the sombrero back on.

“Thanks.”

“Next time, Rob,” says the Doctor as he turns around to face her, “get one of your siblings to take that out. I’m rubbish at hair.” To further illustrate her point, she gestures to her own blonde locks, the boy grinning at her.

“Sure.”

Ryan interrupts, “Doctor. We’ve got a problem.”

“Problem?” The Doctor turns to look at them, the boy, Rob, blinking at them all rapidly. “What kind of problem? Who’s this?”

“She was asking for you,” says Ryan. Bobbie cautiously lets go of his hand, approaching the Doctor with a nervous hitch to her breath. “She’s come all the way from Australia.”

Standing in front of the Doctor for true, Bobbie almost loses her cool. _Don’t lose your cool. Dad would never forgive you._ “Hello,” she says breathily.

“Hello,” the Doctor greets, looking down at her in curiosity. “Who are you? Why did you come all the way round the world? How did you know how to find me?”

“My notes,” Bobbie says, looking at her notepad and reciting Graham O’Brien’s address out loud. Proud of herself, she looks up again to the Doctor, only noticing the slight frown when she’s finished speaking. “My dad had all the information I needed in our house.”

“And who’s your dad?”

 _I forgot._ Bobbie looks at her hands, tugging at the edge of her notepad. “Sorry. I know you don’t…I know you don’t remember. He told me you wouldn’t. It was ‘a very complicated time’,” she quotes, risking a glance up and regretting it.

The Doctor is full-on frowning, now. _No,_ Bobbie thinks desperately, _I’ve ruined it all!_

“My name is Barbara,” she tries to explain. “You named me after your first Human companion, Barbara Wright. Dad told me all about your companions, he told me _so_ much about you.”

“… _I_ named you?” The Doctor questions, perplexed and worried. She crouches down in front of her, suddenly so much more caring in appearance. The way she stood over her made Bobbie feel small. “Why would I do that? You’ve _got_ to start answering my questions, Barbara.”

“Bobbie.”

“Bobbie,” the Doctor corrects herself, looking to Ryan. “How did she get here?”

“Walked, looks like it. Took a plane from Sydney, she said.”

“Sydney – nice place, Sydney. Opera houses, boats, lots of sun,” the Doctor says hurriedly, smiling at her. “Do you live in Sydney, usually?”

“No.” Bobbie shakes her head. “We had a house inland.”

“Why don’t we go to your house, then? What’s the address? You’re a big girl, got a notebook and everything – you’d know your own address.”

Swallowing, Bobbie shakes her head again. “We can’t. It flew away. Dad left me behind.”

“Shit,” she hears Emily mutter from behind her. The Doctor is quiet for a moment, before she takes Bobbie’s hand, standing up and leading her around the TARDIS console. To Bobbie’s surprise, there’s a set of hexagonal steps, which the Doctor seats them both on. She still holds onto Bobbie’s hands – but her expression has changed in the time it took to get to the steps.

She looks fearful.

“You said your dad flew off,” the Doctor practically whispers, fingers slipping up to Bobbie’s wrist. “And that I named you Barbara. I can also feel that you’ve got two hearts and Emily is looking at you funny. She can sense timelines. Your dad…your dad. It’s him, isn’t it? – the Master.”

“Yeah.” The girl clutches her notebook tighter. It’s strange to hear someone else call him that.

“But you’re my daughter, too,” figures the Doctor. “You came here, to me. You shouldn’t have. I don’t know you, yet.”

Bobbie argues that statement. “You do,” she says, firm. “You just don’t remember.”

“No-”

“ _Yes,_ ” Bobbie insists. She glares, trying to make her point. “You. Don’t. Remember.”

“ _No._ ” The Doctor is adamant, her grip on Bobbie’s hand tight to the point of painful. “I don’t believe you.”

“I’ve never time travelled in my life!” Bobbie says hotly, on the brink of tears. “I’ve been waiting for him and he never came back. I want my dad. You’ve _got_ to know where he is – M.I. Six said you were at my house with an armed escort! You met him again, then he left! You both left! You _have_ to know where my dad is! You’re my _mum_ , you _have to know where he is!_ ”

“I do, in a sense,” the Doctor replies, words barely more than a whisper. “Bobbie…he’s not here, anymore.”

A crest of hope. “You know where he is, though? Can I see him? Can you take me to him?”

“Bobbie-” and the Doctor stops. Let’s go of her hand. Stands. Bobbie watches her walk across the TARDIS to a corridor, disappearing into it without another word. Sat there, frozen, Bobbie doesn’t expect Ryan Sinclair to come sit beside her. He looks uneasy, now.

“Your dad…he was Agent O?”

“Some- something like that.”

“Right.” Ryan says, silence falling throughout the console room. Bobbie watches as Emily slowly leaves, going after their shared mother. The TARDIS seems sadder for it. Feeling a nudge on her shoulder, Bobbie looks to Ryan, who is watching her.

“You know,” he starts, “I was a bit older than you when my dad left. My mum died. Heart-attack. I had to grow up with my nan. She died, too – one of your brothers is named after her. Grace.”

“Don’t have brothers,” Bobbie mumbles, curling her knees up against her chest.

“Yeah, you really do,” Ryan chuckles. “Got loads of siblings, you. Not sure any of their mums and dads are evil, but you could always ask.”

Bobbie wants to say _my dad isn’t evil,_ but she knows him. He always taught her to be selfish and to take care of herself first. Human books in philosophy have taught her different, though she prefers her dad’s way of doing things – it’s how she got her plane ticket changed from economy to first class. Hypnotism is a Time Lord’s best friend. She took her dad’s advice on living low being the better way, sometimes – killing people attracts attention. It was a piece of pie to steal someone else’s ticket.

“Your dad,” Ryan starts, “he went to that other dimension, where the Kasaavin live. I know he’s your dad and you love him, but he got stuck there because of what he did. No changing that.”

“…okay. Thank-you for telling me.” Bobbie looks towards where the Doctor disappeared. “But what about Mum?”

Ryan stretches out, leaning back on the steps. He’s confident and relaxed – everything Bobbie wants to be when she grows up. He shrugs casually.

“She’s your mum. Somehow. Bit of a surprise, this is – but don’t worry, Bob,” he reaches out, punching her shoulder in a friendly manner, uplifting her spirits. “She’ll come around.”

“I believe you,” Bobbie replies warmly, smiling at him. She gets a kick out of the face he makes.

“ _Oh_ , that’s weird. That’s _defo_ weird. Man…”

Bobbie knows exactly how much she looks like her dad. His expression is funny – she can’t wait to do it again with her mum. Bobbie hopes her mum will like her.

She really, _really_ hopes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! I may or may not write shorter fics, one-shots and the like, that exist in same 'verse as this. That last bit in the epilogue leads into something I've been toying with.
> 
> If anyone wants to see something specific or read about an adventure from one of the characters in this fic - or any sort of in-universe crossover - just comment down below with what you want and I'll see if I can whip something up!
> 
> [ come say hi on tumblr ](https://wearethewitches.tumblr.com/ask)

**Author's Note:**

> [ come say hi on tumblr ](https://wearethewitches.tumblr.com/ask)


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